thursday, july 1, 2021
i'm finally done the meta-cleaning in here...
the bookshelf will come in on friday (hopefully) and i need to do some running around before i settle in for july and do normal monthly cleaning. but, the headache of spring cleaning is finally done with and i can focus strictly on working, now.
so, the next thing is getting back to filing my drive. i think. let me double check that. i think i put it aside about a week ago to do the sealing.
see, i wanted to finish filing first and then do the sealing after, but i was running out of time to do it, so i had to do the sealing first, and now it's taken about a week to finish cleaning. the last music post was june 23rd.
so, yeah, that's right - now i need to get back to filing. but, i actually want to take a good run through the facebook page first and see if i can build the alternate releases blog up. so, i'm going to fast forward the alter-reality to today and then we'll do the running around on friday and saturday.
3:46
i'm also trying to find a simple bmd v t-score chart and realizing this isn't at all standardized. i'm also coming up with a lot of contradictions in trying to make sense of the data.
let's remember that i have a math degree, so i know what these tests actually are.
my (perhaps naive) understanding of the different test processes would be as follows:
- a z-score for people under 50 should have a very small standard deviation, because the amount of variation is very low. so, if my spinal z-score is -1.2, that would be relatively close to the mean, because the sigma should be relatively small.
- a z-score for people over 50 would have a larger standard deviation, and that standard deviation would increase with age.
- a t-score would have a much larger standard deviation than a z-score under 50 because there's much more variation when you include the elderly into the population. in fact, almost all of the variation should occur in people over the age of 50. but, that would also mean that a z-score for people over 50 would generally have a larger standard deviation, as well (because you're removing the young people, with minimal variation).
- so, when converting a z-score in a subpopulation with a smaller standard deviation to a t-score in the total population (like the under 50 population), the z-score would generally be further from the mean than the t-score. but, when converting a z-score in a subpopulation with a large standard deviation (like the older than 50 group), the t-score would be closer to the mean than the z-score.
for me, then, my z-score should be further from the mean than the t-score because the t-score includes the variation from the elderly population and the z-score has only minimal amounts of variation. that is how an informed statistician would interpret these concepts - that's the right way to understand these words.
but, it's not clear that the industry is doing this correctly; there may be some substantive abuse of language.
so, i can quite easily find a graph online that treats t-scores and z-scores as monolithically related functions, which ought to be wrong for the reasons i described, but would be the way that the industry actually operates, if it is using one sigma rather than two. that would mean that the industry is doing this wrong, conceptually. but, that may very well be true, and it means i need to make that error with them in order to understand what they're doing. because they're not mathematicians, and they may not understand these concepts well - they may just be using statistical cheat sheets and plugging numbers into formulas.
if you're going to present the data in the z-score in terms of standard deviations from the mean, that standard deviation ought to be the standard deviation of the subpopulation, not the standard deviation of the general population. but, i seem to have found examples of both things by googling results, which means some labs and researchers are doing this right and some aren't.
so, it would certainly be the case that if the sigma they're giving me is for the general population then the t-score would always be worse. but, that's not the sigma they ought to be giving me!
so, if i can just find a simple t-score v bmd chart, right? but, no such chart seems to be easily googleable; or, at least, i can't find the right terms.
and, when i try to search for these bmd values and compare them to other results, the values i'm getting are all over the place and depend on the machine, the gender, the ethnicity....and they're wildly variable, at that.
so, i need the lab to calibrate this for me.
in the end, i may discard their reading. but, i have to understand what they did first, and the only way i'm going to do that is to ask them.
4:08
to be clear: i can find examples of research papers that seem to be doing this correctly, and that present z-score values that are further from the mean than t-score values, for young people.
but most of the data analysis seems to be doing this wrong, in presenting z-values in terms of standard deviations taken from the general population, rather than the subpopulation being referenced. in which case, that number is meaningless, because it's statistically incoherent, and i just need to ask for the t-value, instead.
4:16
so, i don't know.
if this lab did this right, then the results are relatively good. and, as far as i can tell, the absolute bmd numbers are not that bad; they could be better, but they're not awful.
on the other hand, if this lab is making what appears to be a common conceptual error that the industry appears to be standardizing, then the t-scores are necessarily worse than the z-scores, and the osteopenia diagnosis stands, after all.
i have to ask the lab to find out.
4:21
looking at absolute bmds, i think that my results for all three measurements should be within 1 standard deviation in t-scores - with the lumbar spine and femur total both around -0.5 and the left femur neck at around -0.9. that would suggest that the lab did this correctly, and did not make the standard conceptual error i'm finding frequently in googling this.
but, i have to ask.
4:26
so, it seems like what they do is typically take standard deviations from white females and just uniformly apply it to everybody else.
seriously.
and, that's incoherent.
...and doesn't seem to explain what i see in front of me well.
4:44
this site articulates the error.
"The standard deviations don't change very much with age, so the risk per SD will be the same using T-score or Z-score."
i would challenge the claim, but let's put that aside. if the standard deviations are the same for people aged 40-50 as they are for people aged 70-80, that's not the same thing as saying the standard deviations for people aged 40-50 are the same as that aged 0-100. if the standard deviation was static, bone loss wouldn't be age dependent - and it is.
this seems to be frequently done, but it's wrong.
and i hope my local lab didn't make this lazy mistake.
but, i have to ask.
5:10
are thirty year-olds just as likely to get osteoporosis as ninety year-olds?
no?
then you can't use the same sigma, even if the variability within the age ranges is similar (with different bounds).
5:14
yeah.
regardless of what standard deviation they used, this kind of testing is easier if you have a defined gender and are of unambiguous ancestry. but, i'm the worst person to plug into this, because i'm transgendered and i'm an exceedingly diverse mix of breeds. so, the best thing they can really do is give me a wide variety of readouts and let me figure it out.
whether they did the right sigma or not, the white caucasian male reference seems to be the worst one they could have picked. if they had picked jewish male, or native american female, the numbers would be around or above average. and, without doing targeted dna testing, i have no idea if white caucasian male is better than native american female - because you can't pick bone genes out of physical appearances like that.
i'll need to wait until friday, but i'm likely going to ask for 10 or 15 readouts and then average them out.
ultimately, i'm taking this data to the endocrinologist, and we can talk about the value of estrogen therapy.
5:52
there's no way for me to guess what the best reference is, without a specific dna test.
so, let's do them all.
5:55
see, this is a canadian reference and it has what i want to see, matched sd in the denominator for z-score.
so, if that's standard in canada then my t-score should be better than my z-score, and that's the right way to do it, dammit.
6:02
i went and bought all of that ram i was talking about.
- the 90s laptop only has 256 mb of ram in it, and that's not enough to run an html5 aware browser (which is required for youtube, nowadays). it can take 1 gb. so, i got 4x512 gb (to max it + a backup) for $10 a piece. and, then i'll have my tv back, along with a phone.
- i got 4x128 gb of sd ram as backup for the windows 98 pc. $10 each.
- 1 got 4x1gb of ddr2-800 as backup for the windows xp pc. $10 each.
so, that ended up being $120 + $20 for shipping. i had to pay the $20 shipping regardless, so it made sense to get it all at the same time.
and, hopefully, that's enough old ram to last me for the next 20 years...
it's a one-off thing and i've got the cash now so let's do it.
8:59
i need to remind people that finding dead kids at a school doesn't provide any information as to how or why those kids died, and while the truth may turn out to be terrible, some kind of investigation is required before jumping to conclusions.
the reality is that the most likely cause of death for these kids was disease, in an era with a relatively high level of child mortality.
but, we have to figure this out using science before we start jumping to conclusions. we can't just find some graves somewhere and decide the kids were murdered or neglected because we don't like the church - that's just not clear thinking.
22:58
so, i woke up today to an almost clean apartment for the first time in years and i'm excited to make july the most productive month of all time.
the last thing to do is remove a fair amount of material and get it to the recycling depot - broken appliances, lightbulbs, batteries, etc.
tonight, it's back to work on transferring the facebook page to this blog:
23:59
friday, july 2, 2021
so, i'm going to have to tack on a little mini permission single to the end of inrijected.
it's just something that got overlooked, and needs to be addressed. it won't take long...i'm just uploading it...
4:00
nah.
that would just be obsessive compulsive, in the end. i'd be adding 8 versions of the same track on to the end of a download-only outtakes ep, so i could post a link to a blog.
on second thought, i'm going to just leave it the way it is, and i just won't have a direct link to this particular version, which has been deleted. that's fine.
7:45
listen, i've been clear for a very long time that i'm not driven by some kind of desire to save the world - i don't define myself as a liberal, and i despise hippies and religionists. that's not my thing, and it never was.
i'm not interested in aligning with charitable groups, or lifting the poor out of poverty or even in stopping climate change anymore, although i try to lead by example and do the best i can to try not to make the problem worse. i've kind of resigned myself to the reality that personal responsibility is all we have.
what i'm interested in - and what i've consistently broadcast that i'm interested in - is a kind of politics that minimizes forced labour in favour of individual freedom. so, i'm not defaulting on anything - that was the entirety of the point the whole time. i mean, maybe you want socialism because you think it aligns with your religious views or something; i don't think that makes a lot of sense to me, but in the end i don't care much about you or much about what you want. what i care about is building a society that maximizes concepts of positive liberty, and i think the way to do it is through automation and ultimately through collectivizing production. but, it's a means to an end. i don't want to hang out with workers, either - and they don't like me much more than i like them.
and, who do i cite? i cite oscar wilde. repeatedly. consistently.
you may have imagined something else, or put words in my stream for me, but that's not my fault and i won't apologize for your delusions on the matter.
but, as my singular concern from day one has been maximizing positive freedom, you can be sure i'll label anybody that wants to attack it as public enemy number one and go after them as the fascists that they are. i'm not going to subsume into the whole, or take one for the collective - that's not some kind of positive change, that's the fucking status quo, that's fucking corporatist capitalism, where we're all just demographics in marketing firms, void of individual thought and self worth and ultimately expendable to the god of the greater good, as defined by the maximization of profit. you think that's left wing? don't make me laugh. that's as far right in the spectrum as you can get.
so, why do you want socialism? no, don't tell me - i don't fucking care, so long as you want to help build it in some way. and, this is what i can do; i'm clearly not particularly affable or very good with people, am i? but, don't tell me, i don't care; tell yourself, and work it out.
personally? i want socialism because it's the best way to maximize my self-interest, which lies in abolishing wage labour and coerced labour, in general. that's what i've always been about, and it's what i've always said i'm about. so, listen up or fuck off...
7:59
so, who do i serve?
no - i refuse to serve at all.
8:20
so, it's too cold out today to go out and do things. that, and i've been waiting all day for my bookcase, which isn't here yet. but, let me see if i can at least make some calls.
it's going to warm up next week.
14:01
so, my bookshelf came in and i'll set that up tonight.
i tried to buy a microcassette over kijiji via interac email transfer and realized that the service is denying me access to my account unless i can connect it to a commercial cell provider, which i don't have and don't want. i wouldn't pay more than $5/month for a phone, because i never use it - and i don't want to be tracked.
like, there's absolutely nothing you could do to convince me to walk around with a phone in my pocket. i just don't want one. and, they cost how much? like, fuck off. but, my banking institution is restricting access to services without "verifying" the device, so i don't know what the next step is. can i "verify" the chromebook? will i need to log in to transfer funds? what a fucking ridiculous annoyance. but, i'll need to waste some time trying to figure that out tonight, because i need to transfer funds to pay my rent...unless i can do it at the machine, instead.
and, like, are they going to make me use the machine, instead? ugh.
i got through to somebody at the medical imaging lab about the bone density results, and they're going to try to get me in contact with somebody technical that can answer my questions.
and, now i'm trying to contact somebody at lifelabs that can figure out where my amino acid blood test went. neither myself nor my doctor can access the results. i got through to somebody that could barely speak english with a bad accent, and they hung up on me. so, i'm trying again...
it should be more pleasant outside tomorrow, so i should be able to get some running around done then.
16:55
so, my bank is trying to force me to get a proton account to verify my identity every time i log in, which is going to tie a public key to my bank account and my email address, which is the last thing in the world anybody should want to do - that provides you with a unique identifier on all transactions, which is an absolutely terrible idea, unless you're putting together a government database.
and, yes, the government can break your rsa encryption, and you're being daft if you think otherwise.
ultimately, i don't want to attach a different email address to my bank account. that would just be a huge pain in the ass, for me.
so, i've sent a lengthy email to support, requesting the ability to opt-out. and, if they don't allow it, i might have to sue them...
18:40
if you're concerned about hackers breaking into your account and don't care about government surveillance (because you're a naive and compliant consumer), then public key cryptography is not a bad approach.
but, if you're not remotely concerned about hackers and are instead exceedingly concerned about government surveillance then this is really the worst thing we could all collectively do.
....which is no doubt why the bank is enforcing it.
19:07
you think the government wants to "keep you safe", don't you?
lol.
the only thing the government cares about protecting is the property rights of capital.
19:08
saturday, july 3, 2021
so, i'm enough of the way through this now that what i'm doing should be more obvious:
that's what i did all night last night and have done all night tonight, too.
if the detail surprises you, it should go to show why i'm irritated at facebook - i had a very granular, detailed site that just got washed away underneath ui changes i had no control over. that should never happen at the blog, so i should never have to do it again.
and, i can back it up and upload it, hardcoded, if it does.
5:17
fwiw, i've never suggested that covid-19 came from china, but i've wondered out loud if it might be an example of biological warfare launched by the united states.
if the virus was manmade, it seems to have been deployed against china (and iran) and not created by the chinese. if that's the case, it seems to have badly backfired. but, that's what always happens, isn't it?
i was just thinking out loud, though. iirc, my statement was that you couldn't disprove the hypothesis at the time, so the media reports insisting that it couldn't possibly be made it in a lab were rather curious, and more suggestive of a deflection tactic by the state - when the state-controlled media in any country (be it the united states or china) vehemently insists that a plausible idea is debunked and impossible, without providing any useful evidence, it's often the case that they're explicitly, directly lying to you.
but, i didn't make that leap of logic, and you can't - all i could do is point out that the lab theory could not be ruled out, and you should be exceedingly suspicious of anybody trying to convince you it should be, because it's kind of a red flag that they're lying to you.
so, a year and a bit later, the cia comes out and suggests that it might have been a lab leak after all, and that's supposed to be convincing. but, if the argument was that you can't trust the state in the first place, of what value is a statement by the intelligence agencies on the matter? not much, in truth. as far as i know, they didn't provide an argument.
so, what you're really probably seeing is a change in tactic, and it's probably not a coincidence that it occurred with a change in administration. the trump administration seemed insistent that there was no way it could be a leak (making you wonder if they leaked it, themselves). the biden administration suggests it could have maybe potentially been a leak, in between memos attacking the chinese state and military directives intended to contain them. do you see how that makes sense, and your skepticism should be directed at the sketchy source of the information, not on whether you like what the sketchy source says or not?
so, no - the fact that the cia is now suggesting it might have been a leak after all isn't any sort of evidence, or in any way remotely convincing, especially not when it's tied to a build-up of war propaganda directed at the chinese.
what does the science say on the matter?
it seems like they can be pretty sure that the virus had an origin in bats due to the dna analysis, but there's not much else that can be said in much detail. it's true that some scientists have found some curious sections in the virus' dna, but rigorous studies haven't yet been done, and suggestions that they prove anything are just sensationalist media reports.
if you're going to read anything, read this:
in a terse statement: we can't currently prove either hypothesis.
i'm going to lean towards occam's razor, then - that if you can't demonstrate clearly that the virus was created in a lab, you should act as though it wasn't.
and, you should remain skeptical of people that are aggressively trying to convince you to think one thing or the other - we don't know, and neither hypothesis has been proven or ruled out.
22:21
sunday, july 4, 2021
fwiw, i appreciate the prime minister's decision to stop looking like a bum on welfare.
i don't have much respect for men with facial hair; to me, it's a sign of low confidence and ultimately just indicative of having poor hygiene. there's excuses for it, like if you're too old to shave safely, or if you have parkinson's disease. but, normal healthy men under the age of 65 with hair on their face are just broadcasting that they've given up on life.
my best guess is that his relationship went down the tubes and he got depressed about it and let himself go substantively.
but, that's ultimately not my problem. and, when you're dealing with a head of state, it's a question of respect for the office, and of taking your job seriously.
2:40
so, i intended to get out yesterday morning, and it didn't happen, either.
the blood lab doesn't open again until monday, so let's see how the morning goes.
2:53
so, i'm up to 500 entries here now and it's definitely taking on more of a shape, although i still have thousands of more posts to get through.
https://jessicamurrayreleasestimeline.blogspot.com/
i got over the hump i wanted to get over, but now i'm sleepy...
10:03
again, the hypocrisy is baffling, and it exposes what white activists have long been well aware of - that a lot of this language is just a cover for base tribalism, and all that these people really want is to invert the hierarchy with themselves at the top of it. there's nothing left-wing about that, it's just muslim-centric or african-centric brown or black supremacist conservatism, rather than euro-centric white conservatism. it's not anti-colonialism, it's just continued colonialism with a different ethnic group holding the guns. people that oppose colonialism need to oppose it when it's white, brown, black, yellow, christian, muslim, pagan, buddhist, hindu and/or anything else, because it's about a power differential and a system of hierarchy, not about racial and/or tribal infighting.
but, i'll repeat myself to explain what the right answer is, because people are lost in this stupidity, and it's going to create a lot of problems if we can't get past it.
the right answer is that this kind of violence isn't helpful, because it turns people against you. if you're trying to advocate for an anti-colonial message, bombing churches that have nothing to do with it isn't going to advance your cause, it's going to confuse it. it's a self-defeating tactic that will backfire as unproductive.
that said, i support a diversity of tactics in the secularist fight against religion, and i won't call out attacks on religious institutions in any other way than to question them, tactically, even if i know that these groups are likely not secularist, in nature. if there are voices on the right suggesting that the arsonists are muslims or islamicist sympathizers in some other manner, i'd suspect they may very well be right.
certainly, having a muslim woman advocate burning down churches is the kind of thing the right is going to jump right on to, and i don't particularly blame them for it, even as i advocate for a diversity of tactics on the secularist left. it's exactly why these kinds of tactics should be avoided - even if i realize the people burning these churches down were not actually leftists at all, and certainly not leftists of the secularist variety, whether the media wants to frame it that way or not.
this muslim v christian narrative is something that smart analysts saw coming quite a while ago, and while i'd rather see them fight each other than join forces with each other, i'm not picking a side in a conflict regarding one religion over the other. that's a kind of primitive barbarism that this country should not want to import, and should bristle up against, even if smart secularists should realize it is, in fact, preferable to the option of collusion between the abrahamic monstrosities, in opposition to the forces of logic, science and reason. i'm on the side of rationality, and neither on the side of brownness, nor whiteness, nor islam, nor christianity, nor the colonized (which are the indigenous groups) or the colonizers (which are both muslims and christians).
so, this is nothing but bad news, and everything about it is suggestive of the oncoming dark age that we're on the brink of triggering into, due to unchecked levels of immigration from backwards countries with shitty cultures.
but, i won't condemn them, because the enemy is ultimately all religion in the abstract sense, and the only good church or mosque is a burnt down one.
i won't pick a side - and i resent any implication that i have or i must.
leftists need to reject this as bullshit and push a meaningful anti-colonialist narrative instead, which means rejecting islam and christianity equally as symmetric forces of domination and control.
23:20
christians and muslims killing each other is better than christians and muslins uniting with each other.
but, do we have to?
really?
when are we going to get past this bullshit?
23:57
monday, july 5, 2021
so, i'm finally stopping here until next week.
i've worked backwards on the main bandcamp page to the 12/2013 journal, meaning the next thing in the list is the warning ep.
i've also filled in a skeleton of all of the inri numbers, from inri000-inri081 + expected completed releases until the end of 2005.
so, there is a very real shape here now, even though i still have thousand of posts to fill in. that means i can put it aside for now.
4:02
i was supposed to talk to my doctor on the 28th and went out late on that night to try to reach a clinic to get some blood tests. i then slept all day tuesday and all day wednesday due to exhaustion for an unknown reason. thursday was a holiday here, and the blood labs were closed. i could have gone out friday, but it was too cold. i then got stuck working on something on saturday morning and sunday morning and i'm done it now.
so, let's get a handle on where we are with the blood work, then.
i'm going to ask for a one time blood rec for the following at the clinic:
urine:
- hydroxyproline urine, total + free (covered)
- oxalate
blood:
- growth hormone (gh)
- lyme disease
- vitamin d
- b12
- ferritin + iron sat + iron + tibc
- estradiol + estrone
- cholesterol + cbc + gastrin + reticulocyte
+ a virtual scope.
================
when i talk to my doctor next, i'll ask him about the following in regards to the low gastrin issue:
- aluminum
i also need to check for bone resorption markers, on top of the bone formation markers:
- c-terminal telopeptide (not covered)
- deoxypyridinoline - urine (dynacare only) (not covered)
the ostecalcin really came back inconclusive, so i need more markers to send to the endo.
i need to ask about giardia testing.
and, let's check this again (monthly standing):
- vitamin d
- calcium + albumin
- magnesium
- phosphorus
- alp
- b12
- ferritin + iron + iron sat + tibc
- estradiol + progesterone + estrone
- cholesterol + cbc + gastrin + reticulocyte
- pth + tsh + calcitonin + gh + cortisol + insulin
i'll take those out of the list as they become less of a concern.
the gastro cleared me, but i'm not done yet. i'm still concerned about diverticulitis, but if the likelihood of tumours is minimal due to the cea test, i should ask for a virtual scope instead. that way, we can figure out if i need antibiotics or surgery without risking a tear, or agitating it further. ask about gardia fecal testing. also ask about low stomach acid (gastrin) & salicylates.
for the endo:
i need to do some more research on pth, as well, and what the following combo suggests:
- calcium, 9.6 (highish but normal)
- vitamin d, 35 ng/ml (lowish but normal)
- pth, 55 pmol/l (highish but normal)
- calcitonin, ?
- gh, ?
i can grasp by looking at the numbers that highish pth with lowish vitamin d makes sense, but it's not clear to me if that's clinically relevant, perfectly healthy or even just a random coincidence. and i think i need to wait for calcitonin to draw conclusions.
- i need to do research on how sporadic sleeping schedules might affect cortisol and if it might affect bone density.
- up estrogen intake to estrogen injections and estrace pills, until the testicles are taken out. do another bmd scan and try the formation medication after that?
=====
these tests are pending at lifelabs:
- asca <---crohn's
- amino acid fractionation <-----this can provide a lot of info. did it get lost?
- calcitonin <--------thyroid still
these came back from the last tests:
- gastrin came back lowish, indicating some potential low acid or hormonal issues
- osteocalcin came back highish, suggesting there's some potential cause for concern with resorption, but it was inconclusive, broadly. and, i was fasting.
- fit test #2 came back negative
these tests can be done next time i go to dynacare <----not right away
- celiac ($90) <-----maybe. last thing to check....
- igf-1 ($70) <-----formation marker. wait for other markers, first. mostly of use if i try formation medication or as a metric for fracture risk and as a reaction to gh results.
- b-alp <----- formation marker. take with others.
- glutathione?
- pyruvate?
not yet ordered:
this test is covered by ohip but is not offered anywhere in the region:
- serum oxalate <----iron blocker
- pyruvate <----manganese
this test is only available in a california lab:
-hepcidin <----hormone that regulates iron absorption
these absorption tests were skipped, for now:
- vitamin e
- vitamin k <----inr, ptt fine
- selenium
- manganese
- iodine <----?
- copper serum <----ceruloplasmin fine
and, here's my list for absorption regarding my diet:
a - absorbing at high levels
b1 - next time
b2 - next time
b3 - next time
b5 - next time
b6 - next time
b7 - next time
b9 - absorbing at high levels
b12 - absorbing, and increasing stores
c - absorbing, at saturated levels
d - absorbing, but a tad low. i should check again soon.
e - pending (paid)
cholesterol - perfect
k1 - pending (paid) <----but ptt, inr, fibrinogen normal
fluoride?
aluminum?
sodium - absorbing & regulating
potassium - absorbing & regulating
magnesium - absorbing & regulating
phosphorus - absorbing & regulating
chlorine - absorbing & regulating
calcium - absorbing & regulating
manganese - pending (paid) <----but, pyruvate kinase is coming immediately
iron - not absorbing in food, but absorbing in pills
copper - absorbing & regulating
zinc - absorbing & regulating
selenium - pending (paid) <----- need to find access to glutathione test, not priority right now
iodine - pending (paid) <-----note that tsh is lowish. pth is highish. no sign of goiter. dietary sodium is low...
mercury - low
lead - low
4:42
now, let me call lifelabs about that amino acid test...
4:47
ok, so the person i talked to on friday was very rude, but i got a more reasonable person today and they explained that this particular test was sent out and isn't coming back to the testing centre. so, i have to contact the reference center at mcmaster university in hamilton, which is a suburb of toronto that somewhat delusionally continues to self-identity as it's own city, despite not actually being one for many decades. it's a good ways from toronto, but it's at the exit point of the gta, in that direction. i guess it's maybe a little like san jose, in that sense - it doesn't accept that it's really just a suburb of san francisco.
mcmaster used to be seen as one of the better schools in ontario, but i haven't heard anybody talk about mcmaster in a good or bad way in a very, very long time, which is one of the worst things you can have happen to you, as a university. like much of hamilton, they seem to have entered a state of decay.
but, i probably won't do it until tomorrow.
i sent some emails out late in the day on friday....let's see if i get a response...
that at least answers the question.
this amino acid test will help me understand if i'm getting enough protein or not. while that will give me indirect information about absorption, it will also help me understand if my dietary changes have been successful or not.
i haven't had a headache in a long time, at least, and it's been a long time since i could say that.
5:21
my calcitonin levels were undetectable.
so, the following combination would appear to be pretty bad, regarding my bones, even if it's all in clinical range:
calcium: highish
vitamin d: lowish
pth: highish
osteocalcin: highish
calcitonin: undetectable
tsh: lowish
so, what does that mean?
if i had an underactive thyroid, my tsh would be high. so, my thyroid appears to be functioning - and may even be overactive.
so, i should have some calcitonin running, to regulate resorption - and i don't. instead, the pth + calcitonim + calcium numbers suggest i'm getting my serum calcium directly from my bones.
and, the lowish d suggests i'm not absorbing it.
the thing is it's all in normal ranges, though, so it's not like i'm suffering from this massive d deficiency. it's more like i'm almost getting enough d, so am only pulling a little bit of calcium from bones, and that balance, over a long period, is negative, in character.
i'm going to take another d test this afternoon.
but, it looks like that's my treatment approach:
- more d to increase absorption
- more estrogen to reduce resorption
- address the absorption problem that seems to be the root cause
11:59
listen, i've done every colon test there is.
my b12 is coming up.
my b9, c, a and other things are through the roof.
there is something wrong with my ability to absorb things, but it doesn't seem to be in my colon, and it doesn't seem to be celiac. it seems to be hormonal.
12:10
tuesday, july 6, 2021
non-fasting.
ldl/hdl ratio: 0.93.
7:42
my grandfather and uncle both died of bad hdl/ldl ratios, and it almost got my dad and will likely get my aunt. it's genetic, clearly. so, conquering this is something to be proud of, and i am proud of it. let me gloat.
now, as for the rest of it...
8:07
it's been shown time and again that aggressive approaches towards the abolition of superstition are not effective in rooting it out. if the hope was that we could help these people abandon their backwardsness by forcing them to change, history has demonstrated that premise as naive and unworkable.
the right approach is to try to convince them to change using logic and discourse, not to attempt to force them to change with violent methods of domination.
i, for one, am not going to stop trying to convince them that their rain dances are a waste of time, and they ought to spend their time more productively if they want to increase the value of their output. further, i'm not stepping away from the idea - dominantly upheld by international law - that the bests interests of the child are more important than the so-called "interests of the community", either. that's the literal difference between individualist liberalism and traditional collectivist conservatism, that the rights of the individual are what matters, not the so-called "rights of the group" (which are just the individual rights of the elite that administer the group. it's an undefinable and incoherent idea.).
so, while local models are probably preferable, i would hope that the state is not abandoning it's responsibility to these children in stepping away from the process, which is what i suspect they're actually doing. if the end result of this is that indigenous kids with fetal alcohol syndrome are left to rot in undeveloped communities to produce more kids with fetal alcohol syndrome and the effects of ubiquitous tobacco use, this is a major step backwards for this country. and, that is the likely reality in front of us - these communities will collapse and decay. and, in the end, they'll just die off under the weight of their dysfunctionality.
in the end, i suspect this is probably essentially a functional budget cut, marketed under the delusions of self-ownership, and an underhanded way to advance the colonial project by stepping back and allowing them to just kill themselves off.
20:24
so, what would i suggest?
the local model is probably preferable. i'm an anarchist - i agree that issues are usually best dealt with on the ground. i want to be careful how i say this, so it's not misinterpreted as suggesting support for tribal, ethnic, religious or linguistic "communities" - that's not what i'm getting at, i want to be explicit that it's not what i'm getting at and i want to hope it's not misinterpreted that way. but, small groups of people that are tied to the environment they live in, and live in social interaction with each other, should be allowed to write their own rules, to a very large extent - because they understand their own concerns better than people that live very far away, in different cultural realities and different economic organizations. in that sense, i almost accidentally support the tribal models, borne out of the socio-economic factors that produced them in the first place.
but, federal funds for education should be tied to specific standards, not abandoned in a collapse into relativity. and, i feel a responsibility to ensure that the rights of individuals on the ground are protected against the dictates of the community (which is in opposition to the conservative ideas of community involvement upheld by the contemporary fake left) and that kids are not left behind in these hellholes to rot and die - that there is some kind of way out of the backwardsness and into modernity.
i guess i can hope that if you leave the kids there, they will revolutionize the culture, themselves.
but, the fear is that they won't, and i think that this is more realistic.
so, i would call on the federal government to not abandon it's responsibility to genetically indigenous children, in helping them escape their culture, if they choose to.
20:40
do you really think that a federal policy that facilitates teaching kids to do rain dances in the 21st century is a good idea?
'cause i don't.
and, i think you should check into a mental institution, if you do.
21:05
i'm just trying to maintain consistency in my views regarding education as they apply towards all children, and it's running up against huge amounts of liberal racism, which is leading them to align with the most conservative elements of indigenous society.
see, it works something like this: because liberals are all terrible racists, they think indigenous people are all the same. so, instead of understanding that there is a spectrum of belief in indigenous society (just like white people!), they talk about things like "indigenous culture", which is no more real than "white culture" or "black culture".
and, what segment of indigenous society wants to teach rain dances in school? the answer is the most right-wing elements of the society. and, yet, liberals don't just consistently align with these right-wing elements, but they seek them out - and then use them as representatives, to generalize indigenous perceptions with. they'll then even parrot the right-wing argument that indigenous people that reject their conservative value systems aren't really indigenous people, which is like calling an atheist arab an apostate, or attacking an italian for not being catholic.
and, this goes right over their empty, liberal heads....
when right-wing christians want to teach creationism in schools, liberals seem to realize the problem with it. but, when right-wing native americans want to teach rain dances, they adopt - entirely - the culturally conservative position that they're "saving the culture", like the racist pseudo-anthropologists that they really are.
i think indigenous kids are good enough and smart enough to go to school and be taught science and mathematics and logic, and i'll condemn you as a racist if you insist on arguing otherwise.
23:00
so, i'm imagining what a well-integrated, "normal" indigenous person with a relatively high level of education is going to say when confronted with the idea that the liberals want their kids to learn rain dances in school.
"what?"
23:08
and, i mean let's look at the list of priorities, here.
- access to clean water (nope)
- access to healthcare (often piddling)
- access to higher education (often poor)
- undoing racial profiling (seems to be getting worse)
- teaching kids rain dances in schools (win! vote for us!)
23:11
is it so crazy to imagine that the liberal party might want to align with elements in the indigenous society that actually want to advance concepts of liberalization, rather than be given more power to enforce culturally conservative norms?
23:18
....and, what does this (well-established) tendency of the canadian liberal party to align with the forces of cultural conservatism truly portend for the rest of us?
23:21
"wow!"
"a real indian!"
ugh.
i stand with the people on the ground that will resist this - and they will exist.
23:27
wednesday, july 7, 2021
i had to sleep today; it was 8 hours on the bike, yesterday, in hot weather. that's ok - i don't mind sleeping if i earned it.
as has become normal, my blood results are a little unusual, but things seem to be getting better, even if it's not clarifying much. let me try to explain....
so, i got the amino acid test in and two items were low:
- hydroxyproline: 3 (ref: 4-25)
- taurine: 30 (ref: 31-97)
they're both just a tad low, in a fast. it's probably nothing - the lab says it nothing. but, let's understand this, anyways.
these are both derived amino acids, from:
- proline: 121 (ref: 112-335)
- cysteine: 35 (ref: 20-66)
these are both normal, if slightly disappointing with the cystine.
my hydroxyproline/proline ratio is 0.024, which is so low that it's generally associated with vitamin c deficiency. but, my c levels are saturated (65.). so, once again, my results are incoherent, at face value. i should have elevated hydroxyproline...
if i take it on face value, the low levels suggest that my bones should be stable and that i shouldn't be experiencing resorption. so, why is my osteocalcin lowish and my calcitonin undetectable, then? i think it's more info for the endo, in the end. he's going to have good info, i'll make sure of it.
regardless, if i know my c is as high as c can be, i guess there's two other logical options:
- i could be low in proline (the precursor to hydroxyproline), and i'm not. but, lowish proline could conceivably result in low hydroxyproline, i guess.
- i could have not have had to heal anything recently (or something could otherwise be blocking the collagen synthesis process)
i've had a lot of blood work done recently, and i consistently heal very, very fast. so, it might be evidence of efficiency due to high vitamin c over a long, long time. but, it's weird, and that's just a guess.
i'm going to do a hydroxyproline urine test and see if it comes in low or normal (my kidneys seem to be very efficient, as well, so maybe i'm just clearing it fast.).
according to the usda (via the self site) the only way to get hydroxyproline outside of meat is via flax seeds or peanut butter. for proline proper, the best non-meat sources are cheese, eggs & soy, which i already eat.
i should make sure they're both in my list and work it out from there. but, if the point of the test was to check for absorption, it came through fine (the two lows are both entirely derived in my diet), and if it was to check for resorption, it seems like that's not happening. like, at all. but, we'll see what the urine says...
i would expect my taurine to be lowish because i'm relying entirely on my diet to convert it, but not to be out of the range. i get my taurine essentially entirely from conversion from cystine, which was also lower than hoped for. so, i could maybe try to get my cystine up even more. but, after looking into this extensively, my understanding is that if i have cystine circulating and am not producing taurine from it then i really don't need it just right then. i'm going to decide that that's a relic of the fasting.
all of the essential amino acids are fine:
histidine - 99 (ref: 50-106)
isoleucine - 46 (ref: 37-94)
leucine - 97 (ref: 74-156)
lysine - 138 (ref: 110-243)
methionine - 25 (ref: 13-35)
phenylalanine - 53 (ref: 40-85)
threonine: 177 (ref: 54-208)
tryptophan: 55 (ref: 26-61)
valine: 186 (ref: 138-300)
so, that seems to be ok.
1:28
i should also write down the following:
- alanine: 451 (ref: 188-559)
- glutamine: 628 (ref: 397-781)
- glyciine: 222 (ref: 141-432)
those seem to be the only ones over 200 , and it might help explain why some of the essentials were a little lower in the midst of a fast, as i had aleady converted my last meal.
1:41
and, what about the blood test?
the blood results were in the right direction, if still concerning.
b12 went up again,. and is now at 363. so, the main problem was probably actual low access, and the yeast is probably actually working.
the d went up from 87 to 109, which is still a little low but closer to the middle of the data. the ferritin went from 21 to 29, which is the highest seen, yet.
i already posted the cholesterol which is, like....baffling. great.
but, the other markers remain a little elusive.
my calcium levels have been checked a few times now and they're always in the same range. this time, it was:
calcium: 2.38 (--->9.54, which is a little lower than before)
albumin: 45.9 g/l (ref: 35-48)
so, i'm getting lots of calcium. but, i still don't really know if i'm absorbing it or breaking my bones down for it.
here's the other iron studies:
iron: 22.7 (ref: 8.0 - 33.0 )
iron sat: 0.35 (ref: 0.20 - 0.50 )
tibc: 65.7 (ref: 46.0 - 87.0 )
so, it seems like my iron's under control here, then.
but,
rbc count - 4.17 (a tad low for female reference and no better than previously)
hemoglobin - 139 (no better than before)
hematocrit - 0.405
mcv - 97 (same as before)
mch - 33.3 (same as before)
also, reticulocytes were 53, which is still pretty low and about the same as before (a little higher).
so, now what? i've got my ferritin up, but my metrics still suggest anemia. it's not like it's really scary or anything - if i have slightly bigger blood cells, i'll have slightly fewer of them - but the point was to get these in more normal frames, as minor as it is.
my last b9 reading was off the charts...
i'm going to ask to talk to a hematologist, and i hope he agrees this time.
2:11
i'm also going to put myself on 1000 iu of vitamin d and check it to see what happens...
i would expect that it won't come up much, if at all, from whatever it peaks at in september. but, i'm going to hope that i can stop it from falling after it hits the peak in late september.
i don't have a vitamin d deficiency, and i'm not attempting to correct one. but, i want to make sure i'm getting more than i need for a while.
d is cheap. if it doesn't work at all, whatever.
2:27
so, i was able to get the following done at the clinic:
blood:
- vitamin d
- b12
- ferritin + iron sat + iron + tibc
- cholesterol + cbc + reticulocyte
and, it's mostly getting better, even if it remains a little ambiguous regarding the cbc.
i have another appointment on the 20th.
================
when i talk to my doctor next, i'll ask him about the following in regards to the low gastrin issue:
- aluminum
i also need to check for bone resorption markers, on top of the bone formation markers:
- c-terminal telopeptide (not covered)
- deoxypyridinoline - urine (dynacare only) (not covered)
the osteocalcin really came back inconclusive, and the hydroxyproline makes it even more confusing, so i need more markers to send to the endo.
first, let's do free urine:
- hydroxyproline urine, total + free (covered)
- oxalate
i also need to ask about some parasites:
- lyme disease
- i need to ask about giardia testing.
i need to request a virtual scope, but le's do some more research on it first.
and, let's check this again (monthly standing):
- vitamin d
- calcium + albumin
- magnesium
- phosphorus
- alp
- b12
- ferritin + iron + iron sat + tibc
- estradiol + progesterone + estrone
- cholesterol + cbc + gastrin + reticulocyte
- pth + tsh + calcitonin + gh + cortisol + insulin
i'll take those out of the list as they become less of a concern.
the gastro cleared me, but i'm not done yet. i'm still concerned about diverticulitis, but if the likelihood of tumours is minimal due to the cea test, i should ask for a virtual scope instead. that way, we can figure out if i need antibiotics or surgery without risking a tear, or agitating it further. ask about gardia fecal testing. also ask about low stomach acid (gastrin) & salicylates.
for the endo:
i need to do some more research on pth, as well, and what the following combo suggests:
- calcium, 9.6 (highish but normal) (---->9.54 most recent)
- vitamin d, 35 ng/ml (lowish but normal) (---->44 most recent)
- pth, 55 pmol/l (highish but normal)
- calcitonin, <0.6 (undetectable)
- gh, ?
- hydroxyproline, 3 (low)
i can grasp by looking at the numbers that highish pth with lowish vitamin d makes sense, but it's not clear to me if that's clinically relevant, perfectly healthy or even just a random coincidence. adding calcitonin suggests high resorption, but adding hydroxyproline suggests low resorption.
- i need to do research on how sporadic sleeping schedules might affect cortisol and if it might affect bone density.
- up estrogen intake to estrogen injections and estrace pills, until the testicles are taken out. do another bmd scan and try the formation medication after that?
=====
these tests are pending at lifelabs:
- asca <---crohn's
these came back from the last tests:
- calcitonin came back undetectable
- amino acid came back normal, except barely low hydroxyproline (which is probably not bad) and lowish taurine (which is probably not concerning on a fast, in the presence of sufficient cystine)
these tests can be done next time i go to dynacare <----not right away
- celiac ($90) <-----maybe. last thing to check....
- igf-1 ($70) <-----formation marker. wait for other markers, first. mostly of use if i try formation medication or as a metric for fracture risk and as a reaction to gh results.
- b-alp <----- formation marker. take with others.
- glutathione?
- pyruvate?
not yet ordered:
this test is covered by ohip but is not offered anywhere in the region:
- serum oxalate <----iron blocker
- pyruvate <----manganese
this test is only available in a california lab:
-hepcidin <----hormone that regulates iron absorption
these absorption tests were skipped, for now:
- vitamin e
- vitamin k <----inr, ptt fine
- selenium
- manganese
- iodine <----?
- copper serum <----ceruloplasmin fine
and, here's my list for absorption regarding my diet:
a - absorbing at high levels
b1 - next time
b2 - next time
b3 - next time
b5 - next time
b6 - next time
b7 - next time
b9 - absorbing at high levels
b12 - absorbing, and increasing stores
c - absorbing, at saturated levels
d - absorbing, but a tad low (twice). on 1000 iu. i should monitor monthly, especially in the winter.
e - pending (paid)
cholesterol - perfect
k1 - pending (paid) <----but ptt, inr, fibrinogen normal
fluoride?
aluminum?
sodium - absorbing & regulating
potassium - absorbing & regulating
magnesium - absorbing & regulating
phosphorus - absorbing & regulating
chlorine - absorbing & regulating
calcium - absorbing & regulating
manganese - pending (paid) <----but, pyruvate kinase is coming immediately
iron - not absorbing in food, but absorbing in pills
copper - absorbing & regulating
zinc - absorbing & regulating
selenium - pending (paid) <----- need to find access to glutathione test, not priority right now
iodine - pending (paid) <-----note that tsh is lowish. pth is highish. no sign of goiter. dietary sodium is low...
mercury - low
lead - low
histidine - 99 (ref: 50-106)
isoleucine - 46 (ref: 37-94)
leucine - 97 (ref: 74-156)
lysine - 138 (ref: 110-243)
methionine - 25 (ref: 13-35)
phenylalanine - 53 (ref: 40-85)
threonine: 177 (ref: 54-208)
tryptophan: 55 (ref: 26-61)
valine: 186 (ref: 138-300)
7:47
i've read a number of articles this morning about people trying to understand why our border policy is currently so irrational. there was even one article about richard florida (remember that guy? he was big in the 00s.) questioning if he's ever coming back to canada.
this government says one thing and does another, and if it often takes some digging to figure out what they're really up to. it's all smoke and mirrors - and unusually so. so, all i can do is guess...
...but here's my take.
it's really not about keeping people out, so much as it's about keeping people in. and, it's rooted in this naive idea of a circular economy that was most famously pushed by keynes, and breaks down (on the surface) in the face of international travel.
my best guess is actually that the government doesn't want you to take the money it gave you in covid benefits and spend it in the states. that's why you can't leave (unless you can afford a plane ticket out) and it's why they're giving you such a hard time on the way back in - they want you to spend the money here.
it would help if they'd re-open the economy, right? but that's the point - you're supposed to just sit tight and then spend it all when you can.
but, i've been riding up tecumseh every other week now for months, and the amount of closures increases every time. there's a strip that's a ghost town. i can only imagine it's worse in toronto.
so, i mean, i'm not arguing this actually makes sense or that it's thought through well or that it's good policy, but i'd guess that's really the concern - the idea of giving you the money is that it'll come back in taxes, and they therefore don't want it flowing out of the country. that is probably why you can't leave, and won't be allowed to leave for quite a while.
10:25
in fact, it's the sort of economics 101 error that somebody like nicolas maduro has made over and over - no, you can't just keep the money in the country like that, and there's no good reason to think more will flow out than come in.
but, you have to have a basic education to realize that, and the prime minister does not have one.
10:29
so, i'm basically in the same problem that i was in last week - i got a nice long bike ride in on monday, but i didn't finish and needed to get out on tuesday to do so, then i got stuck sleeping all day tuesday (which is ok) and all day wednesday (which is annoying) and now it's going to rain on thursday and be cold on friday.
:(.
20:51
thursday, july 8, 2021
this is a blood curdling ruling that turns the concept of civil rights upside down and needs to be appealed to the supreme court.
institutions don't have rights to discriminate against students based on their "religious beliefs"; students have rights against being discriminated by institutions, due to the "moral codes" or "ethical beliefs" held by the institution, which are not protected by law but are the source of the bigotry.
it's utterly backwards in every way and cannot stand.
2:33
this is frustrating.
i've got some cash, so i'd like to buy some new phones to replace my beat up 201s, which i like precisely because they don't have an exaggerated bass response. i don't listen to bass-heavy music and don't want bass-heavy phones. it just ruins the mids, mostly - which is where most of the detail in the music i like is.
maybe i can try to find some 201s for now, but i understand what the problem is - people listen to everything on mp3, so the phones are designed to compensate. and, that's the market, now. if you want to listen to a flat signal, you need to pay for it.
4:39
i bought 449s and 201s at about the same time a few years ago, and i put the 449s on the shelf because the bass response was way too high. the 201s sounded way better - like, it wasn't even close.
so, i'm looking at a 559 and i'm concluding i'm going to have the same problem as the 449s.
i still have the 440-IIs and will use them for mixing. but, i want a flat pair for walking, too.
4:45
well, i found a pair for $30 on wish.
let's hope that's fine for another 5 years.
4:54
yes - the 449s will sound better through a stereo amplifier.
but, that fact doesn't help when i'm walking around town looking for strawberries.
4:59
i was hoping the 449s could replace the 440-IIs, but they never will. it's not even close.
they're alright through a big amp, but they need to be driven rather substantively, or you get that underpowered bass-heaviness. i can barely even tone them down from the alesis. so, they're just shelved...
that said, it's been a few years now, and the magnets might have dulled a bit. it's worth another try. soon.
if that's the case, and i can make sense of them, i may want to get a pair of 559s as backup, while i can. i can replace the cord in the 559s; i can't in the 449s.
5:06
if i really want to replace the 440-IIs, it's going to cost me $750. minimum. i'll probably never have that.
5:08
this is actually what i want, but i'm outside of their service area.
that said, rogers just bought cogeco, which owns the lines here, so it could be available soon.
6:24
for reference, i signed up for a 6 mbps service at $25/month using teksavvy, and it's now costing me $35/month. it's still the cheapest option...
so, 25 mbps for $10/month would be a huge upgrade in service at less than a third of the price.
i'd jump at that. obviously.
6:30
should i worry about my rbc being a tad low?
the lab's reference range seems to be higher than others. i'm at 4.17, and that's either normal or concerning depending on who you ask...
i understand that having low testosterone means i should have lower rbc counts, because testosterone is the limiting factor. that wasn't relevant when i was dealing with low ferritin (in fact, it was the opposite - if i was absorbing iron properly, i should have had high ferritin due to low testosterone, because i couldn't convert it fast enough and it would build up), but, now that my ferritin is coming up, the low testosterone is revealing it's effects - i am dealing with rbc counts at the bottom of the female reference range because i have testosterone levels at the bottom of the female reference range.
you just need to stop thinking about this in essentializing or creationist (these words mean the same thing) terms and embrace the reality of the chemistry underlying it. you can argue it's unnatural if you want, but the underlying factor here is simply the chemistry, and if i have female reference levels of testosterone then i'm going to produce female reference levels of red blood cells. that's entirely logical, and repeatably demonstrable.
but, what does that mean, exactly? if i have lower muscle mass, do i need more red blood cells?
further, what is the female reference frame, in the first place?
this site suggests 3.5-5.5, meaning my 4.17 is just fine. in fact, it puts the male reference at 4.3-5.9, meaning i'm just a tad under it:
but, the labs in canada suggest the female reference range starts at 4.2 and the male reference range starts at 4.7. that would suggest i'm low for both.
clearly, there's a lot of variability here, but the bottom line is that this is easy enough to understand in terms of testosterone production and that if i'm to maintain very low testosterone then i'm going to have slightly decreased levels of rbcs as a result of it - necessarily. that would be independent of iron absorption...
the more fundamental question is really if i like this, and i have to admit i don't like the tiredness, but do like the decreased libido. so, what's the right balance, there?
for now, i should be more concerned about the large rbc sizes - the mcv and mch - as they seem to suggest a continuing issue with b12 metabolism. and, i'm going to ask for a hematologist to work it out.
7:15
wait.
high mch & mcv are also a normal consequence of taking oral contraceptives.
again: both of these values are considered just barely elevated, and some labs would tell me they aren't elevated at all. but, if the answer is just hormonal, that's easy to understand, and something i shouldn't worry about.
i will likely decrease my estrogen levels slightly when i get my testicles cut out.
7:22
and, i should again point out that i had this most recent cbc taken less than a half hour after getting off a bicycle, after three hours of heavy biking in very hot weather. i was expecting to come back after fasting for the cbc, but the phlebotomist insisted i shouldn't bother.
so, it's a weird reading.
i want to start doing this monthly, and keeping up on the results. let's get a sufficient sample source and not rely on potentially weird readings...
7:29
mch and mcv can also be affected by dehydration.
fwiw, i haven't touched a drop of alcohol since april, 2020 - which is just a function of the fact that i only drink at concerts. so, it's not that...
7:48
i thought a virtual gastroscopy would give me more information than it seems like it would, and i'm looking at $200 for a celiac blood test and a difficult procedure regarding a diverticulitis scope - and i'd have to do both, and then some to rule out a list of things that i think i already know the answer to.
or, i could ask fro a whole genome sequencing, and potentially have it covered by the ministry, if i could convince them to do it. that'll give me info about diverticulitis, about celiac and potentially about hepcidin, as well as about cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis...and even asperger's, too.
so, let's change focus on this - let's ask for genetic testing, instead. i wanna get sequenced....
10:03
you know, i can afford the $300 price tag without the subscription.
but, adding an extra $200 on top of it for a subscription is too much.
10:13
i mean...
if it was $300, one and done, i'd shell out and get the answers.
but, if it's $500? i'm going to try my luck with getting ohip to do it, instead.
10:16
here's my argument.
we don't know the problem is, but we've reduced it to something genetic.
so, we could test individually for celiac, diverticulitis, ms, cystic fibrosis, hepcidin, etc - at great cost and time - or we could just sequence me once and figure it out.
it's one of those situations where it will cost everybody less money in the end if we just do the whole sequencing to start, because the answer is probably quite obscure and we're otherwise going to be throwing darts in the dark and trying to hit something.
we're just guessing at this point - and none of the guesses seem particularly great.
10:24
i have a family history of anemia.
i'm not bleeding to death.
it's genetic. but it's not clear why...it could be anything from diverticulitis to some obscure gene regulating hepcidin.
10:26
the best, most efficient thing to do is just sequence me once and work it out.
otherwise, you might have to sequence me 30 times for specific genes before we get it.
10:28
but, the tests done in ontario are done through lifelabs and you apparently can't get access to them directly.
if i can convince a ministry person one day. they'll just give me a print out, and that's not what i want - i want a bluray disc with my genome on it.
fuck.
10:37
i gotta convert that from usd to cad, too - it's over $600.
ugh.
no, it's too much.
10:45
it would be great though, right?
it's what i need...
alas.
i'm not paying $200 for a celiac test when i have no family history of it, so i don't know what's next.
10:46
i don't understand why i'm not allowed to see my own genome.
that's preposterous.
so, what i should do is wait for the price to come down a bit more.
$300. canadian. and, i want the blu-ray disc. that's what makes sense to me.
10:49
i mean...
i don't think they'll ever give you the genome in canada, not even if you pay the $5000 out of pocket for it - you'll still have to order it through a doctor and you'll still just get a printout from it.
and, that's not even oppressive, it's just bizarre.
10:51
if what i want is my genome on a blu-ray disc, i'm going to have to buy it from the states.
it's against the law to do that here, from what i can see.
10:52
i'm still waiting on a signal from the usbp, but i'm hoping that proof of previous infection is sufficient at the border, so i don't have to get vaccinated.
i haven't been tested for anything, but i'm 98% sure i got it naturally and beat it. i'd rather get an antibody test and avoid having to take an experimental vaccine that is not going to help me in any substantive way.
so, i sent an email to the border people and we'll see what they say.
12:40
yeah, well let's vote this idiot out of office and change that.
17:19
the talking point has changed.
“Both governments should follow the science and drop all travel restrictions for travellers between the United States and Canada who are fully vaccinated travellers or provide proof of a negative PCR test,â€
listen - i'm pretty sure i can get you a positive antibody test, and i insist that anybody that understands the science will agree that that's as good as a vaccine.
but, it is not rational - and is borderline criminal - to force healthy young people with existing antibodies to take part in a vaccination experiment in order to go about their day to day lives. there's no science underlying that, it's just legislated fear, uncertainty and doubt. an antibody test is as good as a vaccination, and the policies should reflect it.
and, i'll stand my ground on that and take the government to court over it if they insist on being stupid about it.
17:31
really, an antibody test is better than a vaccination because the only way to know that a vaccination was successful is to test for antibodies.
some percentage of vaccinated people will fail to develop antibodies, and they will not be immune to the virus.
17:34
listen, the variants are going to outpace the vaccines on this, regardless.
in a sense, it's a dumb question because the vaccines will be useless in a few months, anyways. so long as you have seen some variety of this virus before, you should be in good shape with it when the variant that breaks the vaccine inevitably comes.
and, we can't exist in this state of fascistic backwardsness much longer without the society caving in on itself - we have to adapt, deal with reality, grow up, get out of our nanny state's protection and move on.
17:43
i think it's a good dose of surrealistic realism, myself.
i rip the douche bag apart all of the time, and he deserves every ounce of it. the chinese are largely just reflecting reality as it is, through a mild filter of absurdity. but, when reality is absurd, that's just honesty.
18:03
friday, july 9, 2021
so, it's already friday, once again.
i'm going to finish the cleaning first because i'm now inside for probably the next two weeks, straight. but, we're back to the alter-reality tonight - and potentially into the schedule for monday.
2:20
so, i just finished my first normal monthly cleaning in several years.
let's get to the alter-reality for the day...
...and there's every reason to think things can be back on track for monday.
8:38
i'm technically 40. but, if you make antibody testing free, i can make a more informed choice - and the state can get data on how many young people don't need to get vaccinated.
but, i'm not going to take a completely unnecessary risk in order to prolong the life of an elderly stranger by a few weeks.
you can't convince me when you're logically wrong.
i will require antibody testing before i consider vaccination, and you can adjust to that or be stubborn about it.
13:#9
if i have antibodies already, vaccination is pointless.
if i don't, i might be more likely to get vaccinated.
13:42
the other thing about this that sticks in my craw is that this buffoon thinks he has some sort of divine right to decide who is welcome here and who isn't. it's a decidedly monarchical view - he really thinks he's the king.
and, it's decidedly uncanadian.
so, on behalf of the people of canada let me state this: mr. trudeau, you are not welcome here.
now, let's get rid of him.
20:44
he keeps using these words: "you are not welcome".
they're very unbecoming words of a man in his position, very childish words, very uneducated words, very conservative words and words that should disqualify him from holding higher office.
i don't want my government deciding who is welcome and who is unwelcome - that's a type of right-wing extremism that has no place in our system of government.
20:47
i don't want to hear any elected official at any level of government state the words "you are not welcome here" to anybody.
20:49
but, this is what they're doing - they're trying to run an election on right-wing anti-american xenophobia.
and, this is supposed to be our center-left.
it's distressing.
20:50
saturday, july 10, 2021
i want to summarize what i think about the origins of ancient civilizations in the middle east, which seems to have been a meeting point even 5000 years ago.
- elamites were probably dark-skinned south asians, similar to modern day tamils. they appear to be migrants.
- sumerians were probably light-skinned hurrians, most similar to moden day georgians or armenians. they appear to be the indigenous people of the region.
- egyptians were probably african, most similar to modern day ethiopians. they appear to be migrants. egypt was the centre of ancient civilization, and many types of people would have migrated there and mixed with the inhabitants. later pharoahs - even before the iranian invasion - seem to have been of multiple ethnic types.
- greeks & hittites appear to have been indo-europeans, and migrants. they were probably very similar, at first. there appears to be a substrate that is probably similar to the hurrian-sumerian.
- all semitic groups at this time would have been sheep herding, nomadic barbarians living to the south of the fertile crescent
- the original jews (canaanites) & phoenicians were probably the same people, up to a minor dialect
- the assyrians and babylonians would have moved in later and set up their civilizations on top of the ruins of the sumerian, although this seems to have been a process rather than a single event
- later (post-captivity) jews appear to have been massively iranized.
- i do not accept the historicity of a word of the bible written before the end of the captivity, including stories about the captivity, itself. even as a pseudo-historical source, the bible is useless before cyrus.
- the sea peoples seem to have been a mix of northern greek tribes and celtic-italic tribes, which would have been similar to each other at the time.
- the iranian invasion is actually well attested and not very controversial.
2:26
so, i've been rebuilding that releases archive again all night and listening to a few things. i've got pictures of all the places i lived at up (i think this is relevant.) and the places i went to school at (i'm going to have some essays posted there, too), as well as most of the original release cycle back to 1996. i want to get that done before i stop.
i really ruined a bunch of my mixes around 2007, and the interplanetary isomorphism is one of the mixes that just got demoed. this was built in cool edit, and shouldn't have been. i thought perhaps otherwise, but i'm going to need to rebuild it from scratch...
9:57
sunday, july 11, 2021
i was pretty clear from the start that i was in favour of bombing the islamists in syria, and i've taken that position from the beginning, and held to it. it's a pro-assad position, but in a relative sense - when you compare assad to the saudi-backed mercenary forces (for there was never an internal uprising or anything that could be honestly called a "civil war"), the assad regime looks like a beacon of human rights, in comparison.
but, it's a function of the brutality of the islamicists on the ground, and not any statement of explicit support for any concept of baathism.
ideally, there would be a third force of secularist socialist atheists on the ground to support, but there's not. so, i'm forced to choose between a military junta that i don't like much and some western-backed far-right islamo-fascist extremists that want to take the country backwards in time. as much as i may not like the assad regime, there's not a serious choice here.
i'm aware of the kurds, but they're really just a proxy of us power and wouldn't exist for five minutes without us air support. on top of that, they're also ethnic nationalist extremists that would be perfectly happy to wipe out whatever ethnic group is occupying an area they want, so they're not the answer that's often imagined. they should be supported when they can, to some limits, as they are relatively preferable, but it's delusional to look at an independent kurdistan as the solution to the proxy war in syria - it doesn't really address any of the serious questions.
the fundamental basis of the conflict is that the saudis were trying to undermine the democratic reforms brought in by the younger assad, and that seems to have worked. the russians are now running the country, and they're going to leave the junta in place for the foreseeable future.
so, these backwards elements need to be annihilated and the west needs to pack up and get out. i don't want to fight a nuclear war with the russians and/or chinese over a patch of oil in the syrian desert.
so, i'll say this again - the best thing you can do, as an activist, is to stop buying saudi oil, as best you can, wherever you live.
2:44
so, i'm up to 777 posts and still have hundreds (thousands.) left to go, bhut i got the heavy lifting done for the part of the discography which was redone the most number of times, which is the part from 1996 to early 1999 (the first two demos and subsequent first two lps).
that means you can do things like search for i did your mom on the side panel and get all versions of it, now:
it's time to stop to eat last night's supper.
8:48
monday, july 12, 2021
again, maybe i should clarify that bombing the middle east isn't a "moral question", and my views regarding it don't have anything to do with "morality". it's a tactical question, regarding what we deduce is the best way to reshape the region in our interests.
"but that's colonialism!!!L!L!"
like, grow up. that's reality - that's how grown-ups look at the world.
so, back in the early 00s, the middle east was a society that was exiting a failed experiment in "arab socialism", that was constructed as a sort of middle point between soviet and american imperialism. in the end, both syria and iraq ended up as satellites of the soviet empire, and baathism ended up as a relic of sovietism, but the systems in place were not really similar to the ones in the soviet union, but were kind of some kind of perversion of socialism with islam. it was a society that needed revolutionary overturn, but it was not a society that was unadvanced, or mired in medieval thinking; leftists on the ground may have needed some help from the west (if they could have gotten it, which was naive), but they didn't need the society wiped out, or to start over again. they were relatively scientifically literate and relatively prosperous, as well; they had a good foundation in which to start from.
so, i opposed the bombing campaigns that happened at the time.
but, those campaigns did happen, despite opposition from voices such as myself, and the area was consequently destroyed. that good foundation was uprooted, and the society caved in on itself. what developed in it's place was the situation that the right had previously scare-mongered about and had previously not existed - gangs of armed religious fundamentalists let loose from the bounds of modernity, that wanted to turn the clocks back to the dark ages. that was simply untrue in saddam's iraq, but it was reality on the ground by the late 00s and spilled over into the surrounding areas by the early 10s.
so, if the argument in 2003 was "well, maybe you'd be right if that was actually true, but, that isn't actually true, so you're wrong.", we were faced with a reversal of facts on the ground by 2011 - those things now were true, and the arguments we heard in the first place were now actually the correct ones.
facts can change deductions pretty dramatically, and if you adhere to facts then you must change your analysis from time to time.
now, that doesn't mean i was wrong to oppose the war in 2003. to the contrary, everything that people like myself warned about actually happened - demonstrating just how right i was. i was so baffled by the premise, that i actually went through a period in 2002 arguing that they'd never actually do it because it was too fucking stupid, and they're not that incompetent. alas...
my point is this: there is a chorus of politicians, analysts and pundits that have, for many years now, admitted they were wrong in 2003 and need to undo their actions. i am not one of those people - i was right in 2003. but, because i was right in 2003, that means i support waging total and unrestrained war against the backwards islamist groups on the ground, today. and, if they are not stamped out, if they are allowed to build their system of hate and repression and destruction, you will realize in 2050 that i was right today, too.
obama briefly got it right in the mid 10s.
but, i actually think that most of the people that were wrong to call for an invasion in 2003 are also wrong to call for a pullout in 2021, at least until the situation is stabilized.
but, in a sense, that's fine - the russians are just better at this imperialism thing than we are, anyways. but, if we're going to get out of the way, we should also provide them with concrete aid to do the job we failed at, ourselves.
i want a stable, democratic middle east. that cannot happen until radical islamism is annihilated with pesticides, pulled out by the roots and burned in a ritual display. there can be no co-existence - they must be destroyed.
2:06
so, as i'm about to get back to period 3, i need some more live amp options for recording. the pod is great for cleaning up signal chains at the end, but it's not the bestest for direct live amps, and i'm going to need that, now.
i don't have a real guitar amp, and really never have; i've spent my whole life playing through headphones or into recording interfaces. really. i still have the little cheri practice amp i got with my first hondo when i was 12, and i have this old fender bass amp that was purchased for use with synthesizers (and i find is too bassy, oddly enough). that peavey i used to have has been gone for years; i think my sister decided it was hers.
i had a medium-sized marshall for a short amount of time, but i actually ditched it because i didn't like the sound of it (i exchanged it for an electric mandolin that disappeared years later). i bought a fender twin years ago with microsoft money and brought it back a few days later because it was so dirty sounding (it may have had a blown speaker, but i couldn't convince the snobs at steve's of it, they just claimed the line was dirty and "it's supposed to sound like that"). i never replaced it...
it could be that my preference for clean signal chains in recording studios has simply predisposed me to levels of amp quality that i just can't afford. but, i need a way around it..
i have a little ms-2, though, and i actually like it better than either the twin or the marshall. and, it got me to wondering about it....
....i can't afford a pile of old amps, and i need something better than emulation. can i get some mini amps? what's out there?
what i wanted to look at was the following:
- i have an ms-2, and a jmp-1 drp-1 as well. this is a good mid level overdrive sound.
- can i get a great clean amp, like a vox or a jazz chorus?
yes - i just bought one of these:
- can i get something a little chunkier, like a jcm or maybe an orange?
yes - i just bought one of these:
i was also looking at a mini fender twin, but...i just expect to get the same result.
these three classics, along with the pod, should get me all the tones i need, i think.
11:50
regarding the mini-fenders...
i'm totally tempted, still, and i'll pick up the orange tomorrow, so i could still bite. but, the fact is that the pod is probably good enough for most of what i need to do, and i'm totally wary about these noisy twins and thin little tweeds....
the mini twins are suppose to be 65s, but they don't have reverb. the pod emulation has reverb. the 57 tweed may be more real, in that sense. but, they're both solid state, and i'm trying to get a tube sound. the vox actually has a tube in it!
and, what about the jazz chorus? when i got the fender twin, i really wanted a jazz chorus, it just wasn't financially possible, even with the microsoft money. i should point out that the twin was a new reissue, and i've never seen a real 60s twin. nowadays, i run almost every patch i build in the pod through the jazz chorus emulation - it's what i really wanted. i've got a little art tube that i use to warm it up, and then i can put whatever else in between, but almost everything recorded since 2009 has that roland jazz chorus emulator at the end, on the way into the mixer. i have no complaints about it, either. so, there's a kind of counter-intuitive answer with this - you'd think if you love it, you should get a real one, right? but, i don't need it. and, it makes sense that the emulator works best on the solid state sounds, too.
what i need is better ways to get live tube amp sounds, and the vox should hopefully mostly fix that, at least for clean sounds. i'll have to chew on the little 57, but i'll probably pass.
13:53
so, i've bought a few items on line this week that i'm expecting to arrive in the mail.
i heard the mailperson, so i went up to check the front to see if anything was left there. and, i found this:
...which would appear to be some coffee left for the pigs upstairs.
three little piggies, it would seem.
and, you thought i was just losing my mind, right?
15:11
i've got three fucking useless pigs sitting up there.
and, people are killing each other out on the streets.
what a ridiculous waste of resources.
15:14
yes, tim horton's is a donut shop.
i didn't see any, though.
worst pigs ever.
17:45
tuesday, july 13, 2021
if there was any sanity in the world, the russians and americans would be building a united front against radical islam.
but, the fact is that the west created radical islam to fight the russians. and, what that means is that if you want to root out these fascists, it's the russians that are the good guys in history - as always.
3:35
at the end of 2003, i wrote a song called like divine amoebas that warned that the result of the occupation of afghanistan would be the creation of a generation of radical islamists bent on enacting their revenge against the west.
that song may have been misunderstood.
badal is the word for revenge in the pashtunwali, the pashtun code of honour, which is what orders the tribal society in the region, more so than any concept of islam. nonetheless, it is the vicious application of the horrors of islamic law that await the society on the resumption of taliban rule. and, our solidarity should be with the people fighting against the barbarism of sharia law.
here we are, almost 20 years later, and those children have grown strong and want to fight.
we must take no pleasure in it, and we must realize that it is a consequence of our own mistakes. but, we need to annihilate them - without mercy, and without shame.
3:46
if joseph biden wants to abandon his role as leader of the free world to vladimir putin, so be it.
i will need to stand with the russians as they take on the responsibility that we've abrogated.
3:53
it's an absurd error.
but, everything about joseph biden's past suggested he would do nothing but make errors, as commander-in-chief.
and, this is why i couldn't support him.
3:55
when i was kid, i frequently watched a film called the princess bride, mostly because it was a favourite of my stepmother's. within the film, there is a stereotyped spanish character that was in search of the one-armed six-fingered man (a crude fugitive parody), and who repeatedly stated the following line:
my name is inigo montaya. you have killed my father. prepare to die.
while the film presents this man's plight in a romanticized sense, he is truly the most contemptible sort of barbarian, carrying out the most barbaric type of blood feud; this man has dedicated his life to the death of another, and has no apparent purpose or aim to his life, no goals, no other reason to exist. one presumes that he could happily expire upon enacting his revenge, with no other thought in his head at all. and, he travels the world seeking the opportunity to actualize it.
it is no doubt some kind of warped concept of "justice" in this man's mind, but that is a thought process that must be alien to any civilized creature. that's an utterly barbaric concept of justice.
the united states has created an entire generation of inigo montoyas in afghanistan, and that is what the song was about. these inigo montoyas will not give up upon american withdrawal, as they have no other reason to exist. they are operating under a code of honour that can only be abrogated in their own suicide. there is no other option for them.
so, we can kill them now, or we can wait for them to try to kill us later. and, the more inigo montoyas we kill, the more inigo montoyas we create.
there is little chance they will succeed, but withdrawal is not a solution - it is an escalation in total violence.
the only way forward is to wipe them out before they can create further generations. and, that is a harsh lesson, but one we must learn.
a society rooted in the pashtunwali should not exist in the modern era. so, call it genocide if you want, and offer it as an example of one that is justified in the name of the broader expansion of peace and human rights.
4:17
to them, a withdrawal is merely a retreat.
and, the sitting president is simply too stupid to understand that.
4:21
i would, personally, like to see the region return to it's buddhist heritage.
but, that's up to the people that live there.
4:58
nowadays, scientists frequently quote monty python. but, there was no monty python in the 16th or 17th centuries. so, what were scientists to do?
the answer is quote dante.
perhaps less has changed than suggested.
6:20
"but, which one's monty?"
6:23
he could pass as a monty, right?
6:24
it's the exact wrong thing to do, as the vaccine is unlikely to make it through the year without losing it's efficacy, and then you've forced healthy young people to needlessly participate in a coerced experiment.
i'd suggest picking a school other than seneca - if you needed another reason. it makes them look terribly backwards and horribly ignorant.
6:39
wednesday, july 14, 2021
i had to run out to get the mini orange yesterday, and spent the evening grocery shopping and fighting with the rain. by the time i got to bed, it was actually a relatively long day, so i slept in a little bit. i'm now superstocked for months, and stocked on fruit & veggies until at least the 20th, probably longer.
it's useful to be able to get out once a week and get a few things, rather than do everything all at once on the first of the month.
the ram for the laptop also came in, and it's definitely not giving it the boost i hoped for, but i can continue to experiment with that and hopefully get something a bit better.
so, we were talking about the fender mini and i found this:
it seems like the devices are actually little mini tubescreamers, but with an apparently poor design, according to this guy. i'd guess the twin is essentially the same thing, even if the wiring and/or chip is slightly different.
so, this is a better representation of what you're actually buying (excluding the fact that he's playing though a vox amp, and you're not getting a vox amp with your fender tube screamer copy)
i have a ts7 already and don't see the value in getting another one wired to a 1" speaker.
ok.
so, that's decided upon.
12:16
i'm not going to bite on this myself, but the ts7 does have a slightly different chip in it than the vintage ts808s and ts9s, and if you really want the original chip, those fender minis might actually be the cheapest way to get one.
you won't find a vintage tube screamer for $70, canadian.
13:00
so, i do really wish i could get a little mini fender tube amp for $100, but the only options are modelling amps, and what's the point of that? i have enough models, in the pod. likewise, i could get a vox pathfinder mini3 g2 for a bit more than the same price as i paid for the mini ac30, and that would probably be a better choice for most, but it's not going to get me the sound i actually want the way the mini will, i don't think.
given that i now know that the fender mini is a tubescreamer with an amp, this isn't that different than it, but it's also a more usable, distinct sound. i mean, it'd be great to get that late 50s fender tweed sound - really. i'm better off with a modeller, though, this, on the other hand is more real, and i'm going to grab it as the last purchase, to replace the fenders i was thinking about.
13:41
actually, let me think this through more carefully.
the amplug2 is marketed as having "analog circuitry". that would suggest it's not a modeler.
but, if it is a modeler, and i'm buying one model, i'd be better off getting the amp, obviously.
it's less that i'm worried that i bought one setting on the amp and should have bought the amp and more that i'm concerned that i bought a setting on a modelling amp and wanted a dedicated circuit.
if it's just a setting, i don't want it at all...
14:01
The amPlug 2 AC30 amp features 100 percent analog circuitry. Thus, if you do not like digital modeling technology, the Vox amPlug AC30 might suit you.
that was my logic, here - not because i don't like the modeling, but because i realize it's limitations.
but i sent them an email...
14:36
i keep talking about the pod..
of course i have modellers in guitar rig, too. i really don't need more modellers, i need a couple of little speakers with real hardware to mic.
so, i think there's probably two good guesses on what the amplug2 actually is:
- it could be the same chip as in the modelling amp or
- it could basically be a rebranded version of one of their stomp boxes
15:04
one way to guess if we're dealing with a model or not is to see how close the controls are. models are notorious for making knobs up.
the thing has three controls: volume, one, gain.
the original model had two controls, plus a number of separate tremolo channels:
further, the item has tremolo switches.
i have to ask. i wish i didn't, but i do - so i have to wait. i hate that...
15:09
well.
instead of the pignose, i could get this. it's relatively cheap - much cheaper than anything by any of the more well known brands.
this is actually behringer, though, which isn't an unknown manufacturer, by any means.
it's not that i'm changing my approach, here - i'm still going to record most of my parts direct. but, i need that bright tube sound, and i'm not convinced i'm going to get it...
hrmmn.
let's put these ideas aside, rather than buy it all right away. i've got two new micro amps already, and i need to finish the filing first, as well. let's see what the vox sounds like, first - and then let's see if i can get the sound i want from some combination of these items.
and, if i can't, i can take a look at some combination of these other choices.
17:05
yeah, it's just a smidgeon too much for me unless i need it right now, and i don't.
this is my wish list, though - somebody find me a little tube amp for $150. i don't need a lot out of it, i just need the warmth of it. and, i just need it loud enough to mic it, too.
ok, let's get back to the next thing, then, which was making some phone calls....but it's the end of the day. ugh. tomorrow...
17:19
i don't think i posted it here, but i realized monday morning that my voice mail had been full for a week. oops. so, that might explain why i didn't get the calls last week that i was expecting. and, it means i need to call this list of doctors and clinics to ask if they called or not.
i'm still waiting on this one result, the asca. otherwise, i'm going to have a clean slate when i call next tuesday.
17:21
ok.
logically, i need to fix my strat before i can look at cheap tube amps.
right?
18:16
when i was in yesterday, the long & mcquade guy suggested $30 as a minimum base rate to fix some wiring.
i can get a soldering iron - which i should have, anyways - for about that amount.
but, i haven't soldered anything since....grade 12? really? i'm trying to remember what the last thing i soldered was...
my dad had a soldering iron, so what basement is the last basement i can remember soldering in? it was a blue soldering iron, i can remember that. and, i remember making somewhat of a mess, but i don't remember what it was.
let me look at it a second time and determine if i'm confident about wiring it myself or not.
18:27
so, i unexpectedly got the ac30 plug in the mail today.
i was expecting to get a "searing lead" plug in the mail yesterday, which doesn't seem to have shown up. i was only expecting to get the ac30 plug some time next week. but, they only seem to have billed me for it once, so maybe they caught the problem.
great...
i'm going to wait until i get a response from vox before i open it, though. and, the bottom part of it should be at long & mcquade, soon. i am going to get a pignose when i go down there and grab it, and i'll see tonight if i want to ask them to look at the board in the strat or not, too.
i have received two of the three clothing orders i purchased - a blue tank top that's a little shorter than i hoped (and not quite as sparkly blue) and a pink cami that's about what i expected it to be. there's two more tanks coming, in the same style as the light pink tank in many of my videos, but purple and a darker pink. that pink tank is almost done, and the company is apparently out of business, so that's some replacement items.
i need new stretchy jeans, but i'm going to wait until the second hand stores reopen, if they haven't already. i have to try jeans on. but, i have no interest in shopping in a face mask, and buying groceries isn't the same thing as buying clothes. i'l wait the stupidity out.
i also bought another usb keyboard yesterday...
so, that means the following is left on the way here, for now:
- the bottom of the vox combo
- a wood flute to replace the one my aunt bought me in 1998, and since just broke due to being old. that flute was used on several recordings, actually.
- the two tank tops
- sennheiser replacement headphones
19:16
so, i finally got the asca test in, and it's again negative:
the second was undetectable, and the first was barely detectable. these are both technically negative results.
but why was the first detectable at all? none of the the other markers were even detectable, what's different about this one?
is it the large amount of nutritional yeast in my diet recently?
19:29
19:32
ok.
so, we all have some yeast in our bodies - that's normal.
finding the antibodies suggests nothing more or less than that my body has had to fight off the presence of yeast at some point. elevated levels suggest nothing more or less than that it's fighting it off right now. it seems that this is highly associated with crohn's disease, but it's not entirely understood why.
so, low levels of the antibody could be as a result of oral thrush in the recent past, which i suspect i had. it could be from a cavity. or, it could be from eating something that's been infected.
i was a little worried at first that this was non-zero when the others were zero, but, really, it's the fact that these others antibodies were undetectable that's a little weird - it suggests i haven't been in contact with many pathogens of this sort, recently.
19:46
thursday, july 15, 2021
one of the few things that obama did that was actually encouraging was try to renormalize relations with cuba.
it's very disappointing to see biden hold to trump's backwards policy on cuba, instead.
23:01
so, i was offline all day today and i got a very large amount of filing done in the process, which was a bit out of order but a productive act, nonetheless.
so, i'm going to try to upload some temp mixes of the interplanetary isomorphism, as well as some temp mixes of xenophanes tonight.
23:18
so, i sent some questions out about sequencing and the dna sequencing people are obfuscating about it to try to extract as much money from me as they can, and i'm not interested in the idiocy.
but, it turns out that 23andme - the cheap basic sequencing - will give me this answer, at about the same price as a celiac test.
that looks like the better option.
as i was 98% sure i don't have cancer, i'm 98% sure i don't have celiac, either. but let's do science to prove the claim, not follow our intuition about it.
23:43
celiac is a very obscure condition that almost nobody actually has.
and, i'm not a fucking dumbass hippie that's going to go around pretending i have diseases i don't in order to generate sympathy and buy bland food to be different. fuck that.
i will prove i don't have celiac, continue eating my all bran and be done with it.
23:45
friday, july 16, 2021
i now have a very temporary mix of the last section of the trivial group lp up, which fills in a gap hat's been gaping for far too long - and is hopefully very temporary.
but, i expect this to take some time to fix, still.
what i've done is cut the first three or so minutes off of the 2007 version of the lost symphony, because that three minutes represents the sprawling half hour epic, xenophanes, which took me from late 2004 to early 2007 to mostly finish and put aside - and is really just the first three minutes of the basic version of the track
that twenty minutes is composed of multiple sections, and each one could very well end up dramatically expanded when properly recorded, which is imminent.
hopefully, it will be obvious why i needed to buy some amps when you listen to the track in sequence. i'm hoping that the little ac30 really opens up the sound in the jangly parts of the track, and that the orange really crunches out the rest of it. this was not recorded using a pod - it's an american big muff driving a 15 watt solid state amp, and sent in sequence to a zoom 1010 for chorus effects. it doesn't sound very good, but it's enough to get the idea across.
0:37
inri088 & inri092
i've uploaded a series of snapshots of xenophanes from 2004 to 2007, which is the last mix as of now.
i've also got a cleaner mix of the interplanetary isomorphism up, that i believe is the base of the 2011 mix.
i want to sort through some alt mixes of the front part of the track before i upload them.
6:23
i know that she's trying to help, but if my house burnt down and somebody offered me a quilt, i'd rip their fucking head open.
"oh.
a quilt. gee. how thoughtful.
my material conditions have literally just gone up in a burst of flames, i'm calling insurance companies, i'm hoping for government aid, and you want to give me a.....quilt. yes, folks, a fucking quilt.
should i laugh or cry? well, i've got a quilt to blow my nose on now!
do you have a box of kleenex? i don't have any cash right now, but i can trade this quilt in for it."
fuck.
the utter idiocy of sentimentality knows no bounds, it seems
lady, keep your quilt for the homeless. it gets cold in the winter. there's use value there, at least.
11:38
i have a feeling that the americans aren't going to want the hassle of checking vaccine documents, given that the utility of such a thing is more woo and emotion than logic and science.
but, i also get the feeling that the americans don't want to act unilaterally, and won't unless it drags on past labour day.
i wasn't expecting the border to open this summer, because i realized that the canadian government was going to put appearances and specious political considerations about "safety" ahead of actual science, for the reason that they behaved that way from the start. this government made the most conservative decision at every point in the process, so there was no basis to hope they might take a more liberal approach.
and, they haven't - and they're not going to.
the date of august being pandered around is more to do with election cycle in canada than to do with any vaccine target or scientific analysis.
the flip side of that is that schumer may also be pandering to his own political base, who wants the border open immediately. the appearance of pressure here may be entirely illusory.
but, it's at least helpful to hope that i may be able to get over to see a show in the fall...
how long will they wait down there? i don't know, but i know they're going to be waiting a long time if they insist on not doing this unilaterally.
11:55
i'm not going to guess what the rules might be regarding vaccination.
tell me what the rules are first, and i'll react when i know what they are.
11:56
i don't want to live in this culture anymore, i want to move somewhere that's more liberal, like sweden.
if i ever find any money somewhere, i've decided i'm going to emigrate.
the future of canada is too conservative for my liking. sorry.
12:20
the premise that children should be protected from alternatives to heterosexuality is a laughable proposition, but the difficulty enforcing it doesn't undermine the cultural fascism underlying it. the real concern here should not be that the government passed a law like this, but that they appear to be doing it to pander to a political demographic - it may be unenforceable, but the fact that the government thinks it can get away with it as an empty vote-winning gesture is a pretty vicious reflection of the backwardsness of hungarian society.
i would encourage queer activists in hungary to openly ignore the ban. but more importantly, i would encourage them to engage in active outreach to attempt to undermine the inherently conservative cultural fail that would allow for something like this as a type of populism in the first place.
eastern europe, in general, is a very backwards place. marx knew that, and communism did not succeed in lifting the peasantry out of ignorance. the area is historically outside of the realm of advanced civilization, the launching pad of successive waves of barbarian tribes, for millennia. it's just proof of the old maxim: the social revolution must come first.
14:44
i went to determine if i missed any calls when my box was full, and i realized that
- the bone density clinic never called back. i left a new message.
- my doctor called. i called them back, and they couldn't tell me why. i think it was about the amino acids.
- my bank called
my bank called? when?
right when i was supposed to get the security transfer last week when i was trying to do an e-transfer.\
so, i tested it and it worked. great. now, i have a micro cassette recorder coming, too.
so, to recap, this is what i've got already:
- one person coffee maker
- backup fan
- big bookcase
- new broom
- new computer keyboard
- 4 gb backup ram for 32-bit pc, 1 gb backup ram for 16-bit pc, 2 gb of ram for 90s laptop
- micro orange crush 3w amp
- vox ac30 headphone plug
- two tanktops (one blue, one pink)
and this is what is coming:
- micro cassette recorder
- the bottom of the vox combo + pignose + circuit for strat?
- a wood flute to replace the one my aunt bought me in 1998, and since just broke due to being old. that flute was used on several recordings, actually.
- the two tank tops <---shipped
- sennheiser replacement headphones <---stuck in customes
16:36
i also spent some time tonight trying out my mini amps directly, and i've got some files uploading.
i've had the marshall for years and i know the overdrive is pretty good on it, but i guess i didn't realize that it's probably something like a tube screamer with a speaker - it's less a mini amp and more a stomp box with a speaker. it's actually a relatively decent overdrive sound, but i've never been a big marshall fan, and i probably wouldn't have taken the thing if it wasn't free.
the orange has a much creamier, thicker sound, which is what i bought it for, but i was also able to get some very nice clean blues/jazz tones out of it, which i wasn't expecting from the reviews. the conclusion is that the people doing clean tones through the orange in their reviews largely really didn't know what the fuck they were doing, which is something that was also largely obvious from watching them play. if you set your pickups up properly and you play with a little bit of a soft touch, it actually sounds great.
so, yes, the speaker does clip if you drive it, which...it's a fucking orange. c'mon. but, if you turn the volume on your guitar down a little, it doesn't clip at all. this admittedly required a little more attention than the ms-2, but that's a benefit.
i decided i needed to upload some evidence to counter a lot of the clueless reviews, as people reviewing the device seem to either fall into the category of "looking for overdrive and don't care about clean" or "looking for clean and don't know what they're fucking doing". hopefully, i can help fill the gap of a clean guitarist knowing what they're doing. but there's some dirty chords, too...
so, i'm happy with this, but i'm going to get the pignose anyways because it's not quite giving me that tubey sound, although it got a lot closer than i expected it to.
19:58
unfortunately, the camera i used to record it with is clipping.
i'm going to upload it, anyways.
20:47
is there any science on mixing doses?
a priori, i'd expect that mixing vaccines of the same type might be ok. but, if i were a foreign country that's restricting entry based on vaccine status, i would want some science on the topic - i wouldn't make baseless and unscientific assumptions about it, like the dumb canadians did.
i would not expect that mixing different types of vaccines would provide for the same level of antibodies as carrying through with two different doses of any one type of vaccine, because your body would be reacting to two different stimuli - in effect two different viruses. you would not have two doses of one vaccine, but rather one dose of two different vaccines.
if you received two different vaccines, and want full immunity (because you're old or diabetic), i would encourage you to get a third dose for one or the other of the first two shots you took.
20:56
the fact that we spent billions on vaccines and then went and mixed doses is reflective of the fact that this is really about appearances, rather than science.
what the pmo really wants is to win on twitter.
20:59
saturday, july 17, 2021
i would support tying vaccinations to employment for healthcare workers, and would argue that nursing homes should be denying entry to the unvaccinated. there are a handful of other categories - including all workers that interact with the public - that i'd argue should be vaccinated, or not be allowed to come to work. these are not technically "mandatory vaccinations", though - they're providing the condition of vaccination to maintain employment. the individual would retain individual bodily autonomy in choosing to find a different job if they cannot abide by the conditions of employment. that's the right rights balance.
but, the autonomy of the individual is fundamental here, and really the only relevant legal question at hand.
so, i would oppose mandatory vaccination under s. 7 of the canadian charter of rights and any sort of vaccine passports under s. 6. further, i intend to stand up for my rights should either level of government decide to try to restrict them.
i'm not interested in arguments rooted in the (il)logic of collectivism - i support individual autonomy, not collective group rights. sorry.
entering a different country is a different matter, though, and i will need to abide by the rules set in a different country if i wish to enter it. i might stand with groups opposed to those rules, but i cannot exercise the rights of a citizen, as a visitor in the country.
it is consequently the united states border policy that will determine if i get vaccinated or not, and not domestic canadian policy - i have grounds to fight illiberal policies in canada, but i have to follow the rules at the border if i wish to be allowed entry into a foreign state.
once again, though, the ford government is coming out to the left of the trudeau government, on this. it's disconcerting, and reflective of the extreme shift to the right that the culture as a whole has taken in canada over the last several decades.
7:31
mandatory vaccination has nothing to do with worker control of the means of production, and is consequently not socialistic in conception. what it has to do with is a concept of "collective security", which is right-wing and fascistic, by definition.
the appropriate idea on the left would be about individual bodily autonomy and the restriction of state power.
so, let's recap.
- mandatory vaccinations are fascistic in character and belong to the far-right of the political spectrum, where appeals to "collective security" trump individual autonomy and concepts of self-ownership. that's mussolini, or lenin. it's as far right in the spectrum as you can get. i am staunchly opposed to any concept of "collective security" in canadian law or political discourse, and will fight to have these ideas demolished by the courts, as they have no place in a free and democratic society.
- the appropriate liberal concept, here, is related to the rights of the individual, which are the only thing that exists. if we're talking about rights, i align with liberal concepts of individualism as the preferred approach - not because i think natural rights exist out in the ether but because it's the society i'd prefer to live in. and, it's why i call myself an anarcho-communist (which combines liberal rights theory with marxist economic doctrine) and not a marxist or something else.
- the technically correct idea on the far left here would be to allow workers to make decisions about this for themselves via councils and by consulting the science, and i would generally support this idea when it is feasible, but it's just not the world we live in, right now. regardless, what the real left would say is that it should be up to workers, and workers should consult science in making their choices. i would add that i would hope that workers would prioritize the rights of individuals.
i've been very careful to point to peer-reviewed science rather than to "government experts" at every opportunity, as the government appeals to science are generally really fallacious appeals to authority and rooted in political posteuring, and have nothing to do with actual science. so, i'm trying to retain a veneer of leftism in a fundamentally un-left political reality. but, i need to defer to the rights of the individual at every step, as i would hope that's what a workers movement would do.
the bottom line is that if you're really insistent on mandatory vaccination, that's a far-right idea, and not something that's coherent in a leftist worldview.
7:59
i live in the neighbourhood with the videos.
8:29
so, i stopped to do this last night and fell asleep halfway through eating. where was i?
15:36
15:54
what if i buy a cheap electric/acoustic and put nylon strings on it, then?
18:11
sunday, july 18, 2021
i'm still down here, i've just been hacking through the retard upstairs all weekend, and looking at filling out options for recording.
so, it's been a slow posting weekend, but i've got a stack of gear decisions being made regarding things like amps, mics and extra guitars, and i'm working on a post that walks through that.
i've been looking at alternative mini tube amp options, 21 fret piezo-equipped classical guitar workarounds for cheap, ways to get access to single coil pickups, potential alternative tuning guitars, mics, 12-strings, electric mandolins, mini ukes, replacement organs and even a few drum machine and synthesizer choices.
the decisions i've made are only that
- i have purchased a second-hand 61-key behringer control surface (which is something i skipped in 2008 because i couldn't find something that made sense to me, for the price), which will be the third keyboard in the apartment (after the dx100 and the broken jx-8p). i'm finally going to need a more tactile synthesis option when going towards the end of period 3, specifically the cycles/second project, and the intended heavy use of programs like audiomulch and reaktor. if this works as intended, it could render the dx100 obsolete, but i don't like to sell gear...
- i have purchased a marantz condenser mic to record acoustic guitar parts with, as i will be recording acoustic guitar parts this month. i've never had one before.
there will be many more decisions coming in the next few days, but i'm still working things out.
20:42
i'm looking at a shure sm57 for recording mini amps with, an top of the condenser, which...i like bright, sparkly guitars. i like my acoustics bright and sparkly, i like my rhythm parts bright and sparkly and i like my lead parts bright and sparkly, too. i'm really not interested in this dirty, chunky metal sound. gross. give me floaty and airy, not mean and dumb. i don't want my guitar to sound like it's going to steal your lunch money, or something, and i don't really know why so many people do, other than that it's some kind of compensation for being uncomfortable with their masculinity.
.....which is why i want to amp the parts in the first place. if i just wanted that chuggy sound, i could get it from an amp sim and an eq. i want to capture the sound of waves vibrating in space, which is mostly a high end thing. putting a mic a foot from a guitar amp and then cranking the lows doesn't even make any sense, physically - you want to put that mic on the other side of the room, so the bass can expand. and you want a few of them. if you're going to put the mic a foot from the amp, you want to crank the highs, not the lows.
but, the only guitarist i know of with a physics degree is brian may, and i suspect most of the ones responsible for defining famous guitar tones didn't do so well in high school....
so, frankly, i'm finding all of the demos i'm hearing of the shure to sound rather dead - there's no presence. ever. at all. it's easy to grasp when you think it through, as it's probably not what most of these people want, but is definitely not at all what i'm seeking out.
so, should i just put a condenser on there and that's it? should i do away with doubling via dynamic microphone at all? how can i test it?
see, i have a secret weapon, when it comes to mics. i have an altec 683b, which may have been one of the first cardioid mics ever made. i've generally found it sounds pretty good, and used it for micing everything from the time i got it for pennies at a garage sale (2000ish) to when i stopped micing things, up until about 2007. but, i've never actually compared it to other mics - i've never really understood what i'm actually using.
these are the specs, which are....the same as a shure sm57. almost exactly....
and, listen to this, which has the shure on the left and the altec on the right:
that's about what the altec's always sounded like, and the best shure demo i've heard, yet.
so, if they're the same mic, why have i never found the altec to be bassy or lacking in high-end response? are all these guitarists (some of them fairly pro) on youtube just rolling their treble off, on purpose? are they that clueless about physics? stop doing that - you don't hear that on good recordings, and it doesn't sound good live, at all. the guitar is a mid range instrument and should be miced like one. if you want to play bass, then buy a fucking bass.
so, i don't think i need a shure sm57.
i think i've been using one for years, without realizing it.
so, let's start with that as a double then - marantz condenser + altec 783b dynamic. and, if i think i need something better, i'll take it from there.
22:20
monday, july 19, 2021
Colijn said that at 90 per cent protection, there will be both fewer cases and fewer opportunities for new mutations to emerge because there won't be as many unvaccinated vectors for the virus.
that's not the right probability distribution.
when you have events that are extremely rare - much more rare than the number of experiments done - it's not a numbers game, but a matter of bad luck. numbers games rely on a concept of inevitability. in theory, a covid mutation is not inevitable.
i know this is counterintuitive, but it actually follows that 90% immunity isn't, statistically, any better than 80% immunity, because the likelihood of mutation is so rare, to begin with.
but, it only takes one mutation, and when you get certainty is when you send t to infinity. the place where we can't win is in the limit - in the short run, it is a matter of chance, but in the long run it becomes a matter of time.
we may identify these variants in the developed world, but they will invariably enter into it from outside of it.
i've been clear from the start that i don't think that trying to defeat this virus is a helpful perspective. there's going to come a point where the virus is as minimized as it's ever going to get, and where the focus needs to remain on tracking mutations, and developing booster shots for the elderly.
and, we could have - should have - avoided ourselves a lot of misery by realizing that from the start.
but, the key takeaway is that, no, the likelihood of mutation does not decrease continuously with the number of vaccinations - there's a discontinuity, and the thing falls apart. and, this is actually the kind of conceptual mathematical error that you expect to hear from the general public and don't expect statisticians to make.
the focus of public policy should be on developing routine booster shots, not on coercing people to get vaccinated.
0:12
as i'm going to usually be recording guitars, the next question is whether a sennheiser e609 is worthwhile, and if i even want to look at a 906, instead.
this is the frequency response of a shure sm57, which i'm going to plug the altec in for instead (because it's less muddy on the bottom end, and brighter on the top):
looking at the graph, it's actually easy enough to understand why these mics sound like shit when recording distorted guitars - they roll-off before the fucking d string. all your power chords are getting attenuated - of course they sound like shit. like, is this a joke? it's not - i know it's not. but, it cuts around 150 hz, stays flat around the rest of the range of the guitar and rolls up after 3 khz (which is strictly the realm of harmonics, distortion, and effects, to a guitarist), then wobbles a little and crashes somewhere well beyond anything you can realistically hear as anything but noise.
this is the e906, which has three presence switches, and is quite similar but doesn't have those cuts at the top, as much:
watching reviews, i noticed that the e906 sounded less muddy and more clear than the sm57 and you can see why - it actually rolls the bass off even more, cutting the mud created by a putting the mic an inch from your amp out (you have to let low frequencies expand first, kids - otherwise you just get mud), and tweaking the presence so it's more relevant for guitar distortion frequencies. it's still flat over most of the spectrum of the guitar (although it starts a little later...), but it hones in the boost where a guitarist really wants it. so, the benefit of the e906 over the sm57 is that the e906 should sound sparklier at the top because it picks up more of the harmonic parts of the distortion - and it does. clearly. sort of. the 906 also has a presence cut that lets you flatten it out almost entirely. but, if you don't want that - if you want your guitar to sound like it's going to kill somebody's mom - then the shure is probably still the meaner, more evil option. you can scare your kids with it...
is that worthwhile to me? well, the 683b likely already does that for me, even if i can't find a frequency response. the mild difference in the 683b v the sm57 sounds like the difference in the above graphs.
so, i should not just stick with the 683b as an improvement over the sm57, but should hold to it as a primitive version of the same improvement made by sennheiser.
now, look at the 606 over the 906, though:
the 609 comes in far earlier - letting you decide if you want more bass or not by eqing it out later. it's more suited for a guitar, in that sense. further, those harmonic distortion frequencies peak high and fade more slowly than the 906, even opening up space for a frequency space that could only be occupied by feedback and hiss. this mic will pick up the good parts of your guitar tone and the bad parts of your guitar tone equally, and force you to deal with it in the mix stage.
i'm going to be recording with small amps that have small speakers and for that reason will produce more usable bass at closer ranges.
i'm going to wait for the marantz to get here and experiment a little, but i've decided that the 609 is the one i want, if i feel i need a better choice.
21:08
this is the frequency response for the marantz - the mic is totally flat, which is what i'm told i'm supposed to want.
that means you get everything and have to eq it, which is fine - i'm going to do that, anyways. i'm more concerned about the mic missing shit than the mic picking too much shit up. i know how to go in and dial in ranges...
i can't find a similar graph for a dixon md1178, but i suspect it's a more flat response in the high end than the altec, shure or sennheisers - which makes sense, as it's a vocal mic, by design.
21:22
21:56
today, i spent the day running around (technically, walking and biking around) and now have the following in my possession:
- the two purple and pink tanktops came in the mail
- i picked up the behringer umx61 this morning. mine is grey, with some mild yellow staining, presumably from being near to an ashtray for an extended period. i had to play through some pops (indicating it hadn't been used in a while), but the keys all work, and, if anything, they're a little hyper-sensitive. that's fine.
it cost me $95 cdn, used.
this device has two major purposes for me:
- it replaces the keys on the jx-8p, which were stuck. it's a common problem with 80s rolands, and i just never fixed it. but, my 49 key dx100 is just a little lacking. i guess i never counted it - i though the jx had 88 keys. it turns out it has 61, too. so, if anything, i'm getting two extra octaves with the behringer...
- it will finally give me access to a control surface, if a minor one. i'm probably not going to go all knob-twiddly, but it is useful for tactical use to be able to physically turn a sweep, and i've really never been able to do that. the jx has a control surface, but i didn't get it in the package, second hand. it's just something i've never had in front of me...and something i've long intended to rectify..
i'll go over this in more detail later in the megapost, but i consider this to be a replacement purchase and a sidegrade.
i'm going to need to spend tonight finding a way to get it to hover over the jx. many years ago, i used to have a sideways bookcase that had the jx on the bottom and the dx100 up top. nowadays, i have them lined up on two tables that adjoin at right angles. the behringer is about 5 kg, which isn't much more than the dx (3 kg), but is roughly twice the length, which distributes the weight differently. i fear a flimsy option may be disastrous. so, the obvious thing to do is get a keyboard rack, but what does that actually cost?
- i also got a fender mini squire for $200 cdn total (including tax):
(mine is red and doesn't say hello kitty)
now, why would i buy myself a guitar for a child? because i needed some single coils, and i know that a guitar with single coils is never going to become my main guitar. i have two epiphones with humbuckers, and that's my usual sound and i'm actually totally happy with it. but, i'm looking for variation, here - that's what i'm doing this month, filling in tonal options in preparation for a recording stage.
i don't have hundreds or thousands of dollars for something more pro, so the question becomes why you'd spend 2-3x as much on a full range squire, or some other fake strat, and then play it twice a year.
i also have exceedingly small hands, so the things this guy is complaining about aren't relevant to me....
i'm also not intending to play much like he is. as i bought it for the thinner pickups, and i'm more of a blues guitarist than a metal guitarist, it's intended use is more for a jimi hendrix, mark knopfler, srv or early corgan type sound. i'm looking for that "sweet strat tone" - or, at least, for the physical characteristics underlying it, to warp mbv-style.
remember: jazzmasters had single coils, too.
i bought the guitar used, but the frets make it clear it's never really been played. minus the cosmetic scratch on the backplate, it's really a brand new guitar, for about $80 (cdn) less than retail. so, i didn't just get a cheap guitar, i got a good deal on a cheap guitar.
i've plugged it in and it works.
this item does not replace a previous one, because i've actually never had an s-s-s strat. the ibanez rx40, once fixed, will replace the defective ibanez hss (or hsh? i don't remember|) that i sold in 2003.
i need to stop to get something to eat.
22:52
i used to have a department store telecaster copy with malfunctioning electronics that i never got around to fixing but it disappeared. it's not a priority.
but, if i could ever find a jazzmaster copy with alnicos...that's the last type of guitar i'd be seriously interested in, but it's not feasible, and i know it.
unfortunately, fender put humbuckers in the jazzmaster minis, which makes it hard to rewire them.
23:40
i suppose, i could get another strat copy and put alnicos in it. right?
23:45
wait. no...it shouldn't be that hard to rewire the mini jazzmaster after all...
i'm not going to do this tomorrow, but it's an idea.
23:49
tuesday, july 20, 2021
i don't think you can really assign the statements that galileo makes in his trial to his personal beliefs. if the bible is a poor source for science, the court room is a poor source for truth.
he was literally tasked with finding a way to argue himself out of getting viciously mutilated by one of the most barbaric institutions in the history of the world, and he can be forgiven for presenting dishonest arguments to try to squeeze his way out of it - whether he succeeded or not, in the end.
i've seen this come up with newton, as well. it's simply impossible to know if galileo or netwon (or anybody else that lived before the french revolution, really) were actually theists, or simply telling people what they wanted to hear to avoid getting drawn and quartered. and, i mean it when i say it's impossible - they simply didn't have the ability to speak freely on the topic. if they were total atheists, they could have never written it down anywhere, as they would have been killed for it. and, if they didn't follow through with the rituals, they might have been suspected of being atheists for that, too. as none of the evidence could ever be reliable, the issue can never actually be decided upon.
and, the right way to look at it is as a condemnation of the era, which forced the best and brightest to walk on eggshells, in fear of offending the authorities.
sound familiar?
11:53
the idea that it's a "human right" to chop your son's penis in half and sew it back on would be laughable if people didn't actually think that it's true. this is scary, backwards stuff.
i'd support banning circumcision altogether. there's really no justification for this, whatsoever - it's barbaric.
but, if it must be done, it should be done in a hospital, and not in some back alley somewhere.
13:18
neo-natal circumcision is a severe infringement on the rights of the child being circumcised.
that is the only relevant human rights consideration - not some nonsense about covenants.
14:22
i was up earliesh, actually, and got to finishing the meal that i barely started last night. by the time i finished it, i had to call my doctor - and i got him to do essentially everything i asked for.
- virtual scope
- standing order (we'll start for aug 1st)
- all requests for blood work
so, that's about ideal.
my landlord knocked on the door minutes before the scheduled call and asked to replace the fridge, so i had to ask him to come back, and then ended up waiting until after 17:00 - which largely blew the day. then, when he got it down here, i realized it completely reeked of second-hand smoke.
it's easy to get conspiratorial about this, but i think it's more consistent with the guy's lack of general competence. i mean, i've been bitching about this for months - it could be a real dick move. that is, if i thought he was able to really think it through. more likely is that he just bought a cheap fridge and didn't ask. now i'm stuck cleaning the fridge.
that's fine - i'll do it. but, it's going to take some time, and prevent me from setting things back up. fuck...
it's just another thing to take note of, if this ends up in a court room. in the end, it's a large amount of labour and time wasted. but, asking for compensation is difficult, until it becomes necessary - then it becomes overwhelming.
the one other thing i got done today was the purchase of some gig bags. i went looking for a 38" bag for the new mini, expecting to spend around $20. in the process, i found a deal on a fancy out-of-the-house bag ($18) and a decided to get a back-up back ($11), before finally finding a decent 38" bag (for $14). this was all through walmart marketplace, which i'm using instead of amazon because they take paypal and amazon won't.
i'm going to need to stop soon, but let me try another run on the scrubdown for the fridge. it's probably going to take at least a week...
here's where i am with the shipping and stuff:
here's where i am with the shipping and stuff:
this is what i've purchased already:
- one person coffee maker
- backup fan
- big bookcase
- new broom
- new computer keyboard
- 4 gb backup ram for 32-bit pc, 1 gb backup ram for 16-bit pc, 2 gb of ram for 90s laptop
- micro orange crush 3w amp
- vox ac30 headphone plug
- all four tanktops (one blue, two pink, one purple)
- behringer umx61midi controller
- fender squire mini strat
and this is what is coming:
- micro cassette recorder <---shipped
- the bottom of the vox combo + pignose + circuit for strat?
- a wood flute to replace the one my aunt bought me in 1998, and since just broke due to being old. that flute was used on several recordings, actually. <----shipped
- sennheiser replacement headphones <---stuck in customs
- marantz microphone
- 3 gig bags
23:46
*sigh*.
so, i get my bank account to accept logging in via the chromebook (although they have to call the voip account every time), and now paypal is refusing to let me log in unless i give them a phone number. as far as i can tell, it's the same stupid thing - i have to confirm my account because i deleted their tracking cookie. so, i'll have to call in the morning. and, if they want me to call them every time, they can waste resources on that, if they insist.
but, i fully realize this is more sinister than that.
why can't these idiots just get the fucking point - i don't have a mobile device, i don't want a mobile device and i'm never going to get a mobile device. but, let's imagine what happens if i were to get a cell phone...
...and the answer is nothing, because i wouldn't use it.
what do i do on the internet?
- i type. a lot.
can i type on a phone? nooooo. so, what fucking good to me is it, then?
i don't want to walk around staring at a screen like a fucking retard, either. it's not some accident that i don't walk around with a phone. i don't want to walk around with a fucking phone.
i don't have a facebook account anymore.
i don't use twitter. at all...
like, nobody sends me information, and that's how i want to keep it. i use the internet to search, not to have bullshit pushed down on me.
if i had a phone - and, in fact, i do have a phone, but it doesn't have service to it and never will. - i'd just connect it to an email and get the voicemail over gmail. so, the difference between the way i have it now - where paypal should send the message to my voip box, and let me download it over gmail on my laptop - and the way they want it - where paypal would send me the message over a cell tower, and have me download it through gmail on my laptop - is trivial.
and, if i can't do that for whatever reason, i'm quite honestly just going to turn the device off and put it back on the table again once i've "verified" it...only to have to keep doing it over and over again, as i perpetually clear the tracking cookies.
so, it's a stupid annoyance for everybody, and it's not going to result in anything besides wasted resources. like, fuck off. i need to get into my paypal account, and i don't have a cell phone. deal with it...
23:56
wednesday, july 21, 2021
i'm going to need to seriously find some way to measure my genetic risk factors to a few things before i move to the next step, as well.
i don't want a celiac test unless i check the genes first....and i have the genes, that's sort of good enough to back off the wheat, for me. but, i strongly doubt i do.
as mentioned previously, if i'm going to spend $100+, i'd rather get dna results. the question is what the best buy is....
first thing i stumbled upon was a "food sensitivity test", which seemed cheap. that's going to give me celiac results, right? the answer is no.....in fact, this test is covered by ohip, and i already took it, albeit in the clinically correct manner.
(i did not have elevated igg levels, indicating i don't have an autoimmmune disorder)
if these tests were useful, the site would provide me with a sample result, and it doesn't - it just gives me a list of foods i should and shouldn't eat, based on no obvious metric. that didn't pass my bullshit detector.
so, don't do this - or, at least, don't do this through a for-profit service. call your doctor...
0:54
i didn't realize that the consumer sites will let you download partial genomes.
the ancestry.com site is standard, and about half the price of 23andme. if i understand correctly, you get the same thing from either site, in terms of raw data; the difference is that 23andme gives you a nicer report. i don't need the graphics...
the celiac test would be $150, total.
this was $170, total, and will give me a ton of more information.
and, frankly, i've wanted to do this for quite a while, anyways.
so, i'm going to answer a bunch of other questions, soon, too - where did my paternal grandfather come from? what's up with my mom's father - is there welsh and scottish in there like she thinks, or is it native american, like i suspect? is there indigenous ancestry on my father's side? jewish? south asian? malagasy?
it'll take a few weeks to get here and a few weeks to get back, but here we are.
4:58
as stated repeatedly, i don't care when canada allows americans to enter the country - that's of no concern to me. my concern is when it is that canadians are allowed to go to the united states, and i'm going to repeat what i said previously - if the americans are looking for a renormalization of the border any time soon, they're going to have to act unilaterally, because the trudeau government is not going to renormalize the border any time soon, they will instead insist on cumbersome tests that nobody wants in order to push a fascist sense of collective security, in order to run an election on anti-american xenophobia.
so, why haven't the americans reacted? i think you should read that again if you want an answer.
in fact, for the canadian side to announce ridiculous restrictions unilaterally like this is a pretty bad reflection of where canada-us relations are right now, which is probably worse than they've ever been. trump hurt trudeau's feelings too many times, and he's going to continue to pout about it until we get rid of him.
so, what do the americans do, now? well, first they have to get their heads around this. i mean, this is ultimately an insult, and that's how the americans should interpret it. and, then what? do they wait until canada wants to open the border in a reasonable, acceptable manner, or do they just go ahead and do it themselves?
i'm going to again call for the americans to unilaterally return to normality, because the right way to interpret what the trudeau government did is as confirmation that they have no intention of returning to any semblance of normality before the election - that would take away their foil, in the election.
6:00
i'm going to take a different take on this.
for a canadian prime minister to try to dictate terms to the american president surrounding access to the shared border is dumb.
and, i hope he suffers the consequence of his stupidity.
6:05
i will say, it's nice to have frozen ice cream again...
13:02
the marantz came in quick. i think the flute cleared customs, too.
as mentioned, i'm going to be mostly focused on cleaning that fridge for the next several days. but, let's see how much of that post i can finish...
13:02
i think there's some good news here - the americans probably won't be checking for vaccine passports, which is the right decision for a liberal democracy to make.
so, they're going to wait for the canadian side to ease up.
for now.
i will once again call for the americans to reopen the border to normal traffic flows immediately, and to do so unilaterally if the canadian side insists on slowing the process down.
14:16
i suppose that the epiphone is really a prs-style guitar, isn't it? it just clicked. i mean, i'd seen a prs before, but i never made the connection. it's the same pickup placement, even. i guess ibanez also did that kind of thing, but it's the shape prs is most known for - ibanez is more known for their weird locking systems and other odd innovations. it might be an ibanez body, but if it is then it's a fairly old one. that's probably what the person that built it was going for.....
so, i've got
main guitars:
- custom built prs style guitar with coronet batwing neck, epiphone branding and two open coil independent humbuckers <----lead/jazz guitar with heavy strings
- slightly small epiphone sg with two humbuckers <---rhythm/punk guitar with slightly less heavy strings
side guitars:
- ibanez rx40 fat strat copy. ibanez has been around a long time, and they've built lots of guitars, but i've always seen them as primarily a manufacturer of strat copies - almost all of their guitars are built like strats (and the ones that aren't are built like prses). i have yet to fix the wiring. <-----was intended to be a lead/blues guitar with skinny strings. now, it will probably be used more for rhythm/blues parts.
- mini squier sss strat. <----- this will become the lead/blues guitar
- mini hohner classical <--- i've recorded classically stuff on this
- full size epiphone electro-acoustic <------this is my one acoustic
if you look at the discography, you'll note there weren't any tracks recorded in the blues style over period 2, except the ones i used my old ibanez (i now think it was an hsh roadstar II, as they have the thumbscrews i couldn't find elsewhere) for before i sold it before i left. all lead parts since 2003 were recorded with humbuckers, and just eqed if i want it to be sparklier. but, there are points where i struggled, and i hope that fixes it. there will definitely be parts in period 3 that need single coils.
what's missing?
guitars to find:
- if i could find an absolutely bottom of the line telecaster copy, i'd grab it. i had one for years, and i don't think i ever used it (it wasn't wired right). <---lead/electro-classical guitar (i play with my fingers, but i don't play redneck music. this is where a tele is theoretically useful to me.)
- i'm looking for a basic paul shape, to put p90s in it. pre-installed is even better. i picked an sg over a paul because i liked the less chunky sound of the sg, and humbuckers were the right choice. but, a paul works better with p90s (and vice versa) because it cuts out some of the low end. i've never had p90s, and it's not a sound i wrote around much in the past, but i realize it's the sound i want for much of period 3. <----amplified rhythm parts
- a jazzmaster or jaguar shaped guitar with jazzmaster pickups. <---effects work
- can i find an affordable midi guitar?
- a couple of cheap electrics for weird tunings, etc.
and, i'm still trying to find a way to get a 21 fret classical guitar, preferably one with a cutoff and a pickup in it.
so, that's comprehensive. i think. that's what i need to find. and, no, i can't afford all of it - until i get a settlement from sobey's, which may be relatively soon.
today has been frustrating, as i've been unable to differentiate between the smoking coming upstairs and the smoke coming from the fridge, which has allowed them to smoke with impunity. and, i may have to actually reclean this space from top to bottom. we'll see.
but, i'm now familiar with everything up in the region on kijiji, and have put aside things i may want to pursue.
20:55
i can't find an exact model of the ibanez, which is annoying to me because i'm trying to determine if the rx40 is really a replacement for it or not.
in terms of guitar hierarchy (that is, marketing bullshit), it isn't - the model i had was entry, but it wasn't bottom of the line.
it looked very similar to this:
...but, the annoying locking bridge was more like this one:
you'll note that the allan keys in the second picture are triangular, and the ibanez' was triangular. the thumbscrews in the second picture are very close to the ones i had.
but, it had a three way selector like the first one, and, yes, it had a whammy that i used twice. it was also hsh, like the first one, i think - not just a fat strat. but, see, the first guitar is basically a strat copy; the second is more like a prs (and more like my weird black epiphone, which thankfully doesn't have the awful locking mechanism). i had a strat copy, with the hardware more like the prs copy. maybe it was an upgrade, even - which is ironic, given that it was defective.
i mentioned that the ibanez had a warp in the neck - a nasty knot. it was a factory defect, and wasn't playable at places. you couldn't bend around the 8th fret. i would have never ended up with it, otherwise. and, i probably wouldn't have sold it otherwise, either. but, i got to the point where i understood it was a bad guitar and traded it in...
so, is the rx40 a replacement for this?
again - i know the roadstar is a more expensive guitar, but the one i had was defective, so keep that in mind. i'm trying to replace what i actually had, not what i might have had, in theory.
the big differences are:
1) the roadstar had far more expensive hardware, but i'd rather not have the locking mechanism, so i'd prefer the rx40 because it doesn't have that feature. i actually just left it perpetually unlocked! i don't use whammy bars, which is the reason you have these locking mechanisms, and not to stay in tune for normal use. and, i needed weird tunings for, like, soundgarden songs...
2) the roadstar was hsh and had a three way selector switch. the rx40 is hss and has a five way selector switch, which is standard for strats. so, the last two selector switches are a little different - the roadstar had a humbucker in the neck position (which gave it a beefier, gibsonier sound for solos), whereas the rx40 will have a thinner, stratier sound for solos. but, what makes more sense, if you think about it?
i remember my guitar teacher (his name was terry, and he worked at an actual music school. he was mostly a progressive rock and jazz fusion guitarist, running the gamut from hackett to santana to di meola) looking at the guitar and not understanding it. he was a japanese fellow, but a jew ought to ask this question:
"why would you put a single coil in between two humbuckers on a three way selector? if you want to play chords, you do one humbucker; if you want to do leads, you do the other. what do you do with the middle coil?"
if you think about it, what you get with the three way roadstar is:
- the second position combined as a bridge humbucker. sort of.
- the middle position, which nobody uses.
- the fourth position, combined as a neck humbucker. sort of.
so, you're cutting off the first and last positions, really....which means you're eliminating a lot of the point of owning a strat.
what that means is that the roadstar was really just another prs style guitar, just another sg copy, and the middle pickup is just for show - and just to suck your tone by creating noise on the circuit.
in a useable sense, you can create a humbucker in the fourth position on the rx, without losing the fifth position. and, you still get the humbucker at the bridge, which is where you want it on a strat-style guitar. if you want to play a gibson-style guitar, then get one.
so, the roadstar is maybe an example of a design trying too hard to be comprehensive, and instead just coming off as half-assed. they seem to be expensive nowadays, though - although mostly as hhes or as hsses.
i'd rather have the five-way fat strat than the three way selector.
regarding the neck, the rx is plenty fast - which was part of the logic in getting it. and, the neck on the roadstar was broken...
so, yes - i'd consider this a replacement, and a sidegrade, if not an upgrade due to the fact that the roadstar was a defect. i'd rather do away with the locking mechanism, and i'd rather have a five way hss than a three-way hsh. out of all of the combinations, hsh seems to make the least sense to me. as it is, both of my epis have independent humbuckers (and the sg has independent controls), so i don't have any reason to want a strat-like guitar with a humbucker at the neck. that said, i'll take one with a humbucker at the bridge, and one with out it - and that's enough.
that is the next entry in the mega post, and i need to finally figure that out tonight.
21:55
the p90s themselves seem relatively affordable...
so, this seems more about finding some kind of paul type affair at a reasonable price and putting them in there.
23:16
thursday, july 22, 2021
i don't know why a group of so-called indigneous activists would target a coptic church. these are christians from muslim-majority countries, pretty much exclusively.
this was probably an act of islamic terrorism, tied to some kind of wahhabist extremism - the kind of thing you'd see from a group like isis. these people were probably targeted for apostasy based on their ethnicity; it probably has nothing to do with the residential schools.
and, while i will not stand up for chistians, or for jews, or for muslims - i will condemn them all equally - it is indeed rather curious that the government hasn't reacted to the situation. at all.
10:55
no.
i'm not putting myself at risk for the benefit of the elderly - the elderly will need to change their lifestyles, to adjust.
don't like it? too bad - tough shit.
13:16
i'm sick of living in a gerontocracy.
let them die.
13:16
there's lots of geriatrics on these ships (i'd guess a lot of them are mostly geriatrics), so they have a prerogative to ask for vaccination status. i don't oppose that.
and, if you're asking for vaccine status because you're trying to protect people that actually need protection, you should be expecting people to take the same kind of vaccine, at least.
so, i don't blame the companies - they're right.
and, if you're at risk, you should go do this right and get a third shot of the same type as one of the first two.
13:49
i'm not sure that they're going to ask, but the one place in detroit that i'd go to and will agree should be selective (for now) is the symphony. if they want to insist on vaccinations, that's fine - the audience contains a lot of older people.
nowhere else i'd go to is going to have old people, and if they insist on checking me for id or asking i wear a mask, i'll just go somewhere else that's less conservative.
but, i tend to avoid conservative establishments anyways, so i don't expect it to be much of a concern.
13:54
it's a conservative party. and this is recent, but it's true - and it's getting worse every year.
you can understand why this happened by understanding the results of the 1993 federal election, which resulting in the federal progressive conservative party getting wiped out and replaced with a western protest party. this left a giant vacuum on the center-right, which the liberals slowly encroached into, as they aligned with disgruntled progressive conservatives to win support in areas that were traditional conservative strongholds.
it's almost thirty years later, and this liberal-conservative alliance has essentially morphed the liberals into the pcs. it's at every level, in most places in the country, even if it looks a little different regionally. in bc, for example, you had a liberal-conservative alliance against the ndp; in quebec, it was against the pq.
now, there is no longer a center-left in canada - it's the far right (the new conservatives, built over the old reform party), the old right (the liberal=-pc merger, in which the pcs got the upper hand) and the agrarian right (the ndp, which is a christian populist party, and not a socialist party).
and, canadians seem to be the last to realize it.
up until recently, the greens were promising as a way to break the gridlock on the right and present a left-wing alternative. whatever comes out of the mess created in the last leadership process (which was the first one in a very long time), it's a taste of the need for the left to rebuild itself in this country. it's a hole in the spectrum, and no amount of manipulating by the ruling party can undo that - the moderate/center left will need a voice in this country, and sooner than later.
17:33
i spent yesterday sorting through kijiji listings and i spent today sleeping. i wonder if i'm reacting to the smoke in the new fridge :\.
that said, the fridge is much, much better...
tonight, i need to sort through ebay and do essentially the same thing i did with kijiji. the idea is to understand what's out there, first - and then go looking for specifics.
20:05
i called paypal to ask about the phone number, and they told me they've never seen that before.
it's the pigs.
again.
fuck...
i don't have a phone!
21:23
i found the guitar i want, and paypal won't let me log in to buy it.
fuck.
21:51
this little mini hohner i have appears to be a fairly rare mid 70s model.
the only information i can find is that the sticker in the soundhole looks like this:
...except the serial number is something like sk67??, it doesn't say "made in japan" and there's no number below it. the number is very, very faded - so faded i can't entirely make it out.
that picture is from a 1978 model, and that label is 70s era, roughly.
i like having weird guitars like this, on top of normal guitars like the gibson/epiphone and the fender/squier. the black epiphone is weird, i'm going to make the rx40 weird and i want my 21 fret classical to be weird, too. i want my p90 and jazzmasters to be weird. weird weird weird...
23:48
friday, july 23, 2021
this would be a nice idea, as a base for the p90s, but they seem to have cut the guitar in a way that's just barely too small for p90s.
i've found a video of somebody that made the mod, and it's pretty small.
shame.
but it can be done. i'm going to look for another idea...
0:24
i just bought one of these.
as mentioned previously, my hands are very small. the 3/4 size is not a big deal for me; i may even prefer it.
this is a washburn telecaster for $200. it wasn't at the top of my list of stuff to get, but it's the best offer on option, that i can find.
9:04
i'm going to go looking through the local pawn shops for a paul copy that doesn't work and buy p90s for it. i don't want to pay shipping for an empty body - i can find something cheap here.
that means i'm getting a soldering iron.
i don't have a good idea for the jazzmaster style at this point, other than to keep an eye out for broken squires to swap the pickups out in.
i have a lead on a 21 fret classical.
and, i have a lead on a midi guitar, but it might have to wait.
9:34
so, i think i'm a little out of date regarding how i'm imagining guitar to midi conversion.
the downside is that it's monophonic, but i can deal with that if i can get the polyphonic version working in software.
i tried working with an evaluation copy of midi guitar a few years ago and couldn't get it to work right, but there are now several pieces of software that purport to perform this task, and i'm really better off approaching it from that angle. the idea is you convert the note to midi in real time, and it's fine so long as your computer can keep up. reaper seems to do it natively.
that approach should work for bass, too - meaning i won't need a dedicated plugin.
but, i've always wanted to plug directly into the jx, and may consider converting the dx100 into a guitar processor. the best way to do that is not to get a midi guitar but to get a hardware audio to midi interface.
careful - most of the versions have usb outs instead of midi outs, meaning you'd need a separate converter.
i'm going to get a cheap midi to usb instead for maximum flexibility. and, now i can finally plug right into my synths....
16:26
see, here's where we are with this, now:
main guitars:
- custom built prs style guitar with coronet batwing neck, epiphone branding and two open coil independent humbuckers <----lead/jazz guitar with heavy strings
- slightly small epiphone sg with two humbuckers <---rhythm/punk guitar with slightly less heavy strings
side guitars:
- ibanez rx40 fat strat copy. ibanez has been around a long time, and they've built lots of guitars, but i've always seen them as primarily a manufacturer of strat copies - almost all of their guitars are built like strats (and the ones that aren't are built like prses). i have yet to fix the wiring. <-----was intended to be a lead/blues guitar with skinny strings. now, it will probably be used more for rhythm/blues parts.
- mini squier sss strat. <----- this will become the lead/blues guitar
- mini hohner classical <--- i've recorded classically stuff on this
- full size epiphone electro-acoustic <------this is my one acoustic
- hannah montana washburn mini telecaster copy <---lead/electro-classical guitar. i will largely use this for finger picking, although you heard the classic blues tone that guy got out of it.
- audio to midi converter to plug into hardware synths + software for polyphonic synth work
what's missing?
guitars to find:
- i'm looking for a basic paul shape, to put p90s in it. must be a super cheap pawn shop purchase. <----amplified rhythm parts
- a jazzmaster or jaguar shaped guitar with jazzmaster pickups. idea probably put aside for now. <---effects work
- a couple of cheap electrics for weird tunings, etc.
- still waiting on an answer for the nylon electro-acoustic, but they've just about run out of time, and i'm just about to order something from china, instead. like, they have to at least respond. simply ignoring me tells me it's a bad seller.
- if i can find a cheap 12-strong acoustic, i'll grab it, too.
- i was looking at an electric mandolin, but it's probably dropped for now.
and, what's the total update?
this is what i've got already:
- one person coffee maker
- backup fan
- big bookcase
- new broom
- new computer keyboard
- 4 gb backup ram for 32-bit pc, 1 gb backup ram for 16-bit pc, 2 gb of ram for 90s laptop
- micro orange crush 3w amp
- vox ac30 headphone plug
- all four tanktops (one blue, two pink, one purple)
- behringer umx61midi controller
- fender squire mini strat
- micro cassette recorder
- wood flute
- sennheiser replacement headphones
- marantz microphone
- 1 of 3 gig bags
and this is what is coming:
- the bottom of the vox combo + pignose (not now though, later) + soldering iron for strat
- 2 of 3 gig bags
- hannah montana guitar
- audio to midi converter (with extra cord)
- ancestry dna test
i was hoping to get something done today, but i spent much of it on the phone with paypal. goofs.
16:57
so, i've sorted through the ebay listings as best as i can and pulled out everything i think is worthwhile at the moment, at the expense of my winnings, which are now almost gone.
i overbought groceries for months, so i'll have extra monthly spending money for the next little bit. and, i still have enough to get to toronto for the orchiectomy, which is the next thing to plan.
i was initially thinking that this wouldn't happen until next year, but they suggested as soon as mid month. so, if i was thinking i'd go spend a fun weekend in toronto and get them cut out on monday morning, that idea doesn't seem to be palatable - rather, i'm going to just plan to come in in the morning and come out in the evening. there's no use in renting a room in a dead city, i'd might as well just get right on the train. so, costs for this are going to be restricted to train tickets and then ordering a cab back. it should actually only be a few hundred dollars, then. i'll need to call them to confirm on monday morning.
my testosterone might actually increase after the surgery, which is not ideal, but i need to get off these pills, because they're bad for my liver. i can still get a bit of testosterone from adrenal glands, mostly - and if the cyproterone is cut to zero, that may actually be more than i have circulating right now, which is almost nothing. i'll have to measure it. but, the pills are the most dangerous thing, in the long run.
it's estrogen i need to boost for my bones, not testosterone. i know it's easy to get confused, but that's how it is - men convert testosterone to estrogen, but it can't be done the other way around. the thing i need testosterone for is red blood cell production, and if it goes up in the end then i should get more red blood cells. the difference is that this hormonal tug of war will finally come to an end...
i'll need to go out tomorrow instead, then.
17:27
i should also point out that i spent a little bit of time this morning filling the cracks in on my electro-acoustic with wood filler left over from the book shelf.
i'm not going to sand it down or paint it or anything, i'm not intending to sell it and it just can't be played outside, but i'm hoping it strengthens the problems in the neck a bit.
i've been over this before, but the item came back from storage at my dad's with a snap in the headstock, and an apparent glue job, although i don't think it actually separated. i'm going to guess it was broken on purpose by my retarded stepmother, because that's how she behaved over and over the whole time that i knew her. it's just consistent, and not even really surprising. like, i expected something to end up damaged, and i guess that was what got broken.
i had earlier changed the nut on it, too.
it plays fine and stays in tune fine as well, but it's a worthless guitar due to the damage. so, i'm just trying to save it's lifespan as a recording instrument.
it seems to have set well without expanding too much. but, i have to be extra careful with this instrument.
19:32
i think david gilmour left his dog upstairs.
arrrooooooooooooooo.
20:15
20:18
(post started on july 17, 2021)
let me take a step back - i'm deciding to replace gear that was sold before i went to bc or stolen (mostly after i got evicted in 2011), as best i can. that's what i'm doing right now - trying to figure out how to best do this in a way that actually makes sense and gives me what i need. this is the right time to do it, as well, as i'm picking up in mid-2003, right after i sold most of the gear. i don't want to have to say to myself "i used to have a x but..." when i'm sitting down to finish these.
so, it's a functional step to get back to period 3.
then,what is missing, what can i realistically replace and what can be upgraded or sidegraded to something better? keep in mind that most of this was sold due to defect, and i didn't get a whole lot for the bulk of it, either.
starting at the timeline (which is what set me off...) [https://jessicamurrayreleasestimeline.blogspot.com], and moving up from the bottom,
- i still have the 15 watt solid state cheri tube amp, which has three separate ins and separate eq knobs. it's not that this is a bad amp - i keep saying that - it's that it's rarely the tone i want. i mean, it was 1992. despite the popular lore, this was still very much the era of 80s metal. if i cared about shredding or metal guitar, i'd probably use it all of the time. but, i just don't, and it just doesn't tend to help. i refuse to part with it, though - and i expect i'll eventually use it for something. so, i don't need to replace this, and i don't want to trade it in, but i'm hoping to sidegrade it with a comparable 10-15 watt basic tube amp. i'm not having a lot of luck with that at this time, but maybe there might be more used tube amps out in pawn shops in detroit.
i'm also looking at something called "nutube" technology, and liking the idea of jumping to the frequency range of a keyboard amp, while keeping the warmth of a guitar tube amp:
those are still a little higher than i want to pay, but something i'll keep an eye out for. also, 50 watts is really overkill. like, can i have it in 20 instead? i want it loud enough to record, without being loud enough to get evicted....
i got a cryptic response from korg (which seems to basically own vox nowadays), and they did confirm that the headphone amp is not the same thing as the mini amp modeler, at least. but, it seems like the amplug2 has the same "flavours" as the mv50, and i wonder if it's the same circuit, without the power.:
so, i'm going to keep my little ac30, regardless. but, that kb-50 kind of sounds ideal, to get the most out of a tube amp in 2021.
so, should i look at the collection of mini amps as side grades to this cheri, and kind of fixing the hole left by never upgrading it? or should i just leave it as it is? i dunno. i know i still have it and don't intend to discard it.
- the next thing in the list is the vaguely strat-like starter 80s ibanez that i sold, which had an unworkable knot in the neck. like, it was a factory defect - the neck had a clumpy knot in it. at the time, the arrogant ass faux guitarist (jon) couldn't believe i sold my ibanez (he was into korn, not vai), but it was an entirely justifiable choice given the knot. i mean, i was 12 when it was gifted to me, and it probably would have been outside my dad's price range had it not had that knot in it, so i absolutely got a better guitar than i should have - i lucked out on it. but, you can't fix a neck that's defective on arrival, like that. you can't sand it down - it's in the neck. you'd have to cut the knot out and fill it in with wood filler, and that's insane. or, you'd have to replace the neck, at the cost of a new guitar. so, it was just not played after i got the three epiphones for that reason, and really the only reason i didn't sell it sooner is that i hate selling gear - and if i miss it, it's emotional, not logical. i don't completely remember the pickup breakdown on it, but i think it was an hsh - that's what's in the picture. i'm sure it had a single coil, because that's the last single coil i had access to - after it was sold in 2003. i had some extremely cheap no-name guitars that i got essentially for free from garage sales that i kept for weird tunings, and some of them had single coils (one was a tele copy), but i don't remember doing any specific recordings with them (but meant to). they disappeared in 2011...i again presume that my hyper-capitalist sister assumed that because they were old, they must be valuable, and i doubt she got anything at all for them, but no doubt didn't really care. i should check kijiji and some local pawn shops for $30 guitars...and just kind of get back in the habit of grabbing them when i see them cheap.
so, the only thing i really want to replace with this guitar is the single coils and, as it would be, i bought a fat strat rx40 for $40 (including the case) a few years ago that worked until i got it home, when i realized it looked like somebody ripped something out of it when i went to buy a vacuum elsewhere. fuckers...
to me, that is a sufficient replacement for the lost ibanez, as it fills the hole of a lost fat strat. but, i need to fix it before i can play it.
(post from july 21st inserted here:
i can't find an exact model of the ibanez, which is annoying to me because i'm trying to determine if the rx40 is really a replacement for it or not.
in terms of guitar hierarchy (that is, marketing bullshit), it isn't - the model i had was entry, but it wasn't bottom of the line.
it looked very similar to this:
...but, the annoying locking bridge was more like this one:
you'll note that the allan keys in the second picture are triangular, and the ibanez' was triangular. the thumbscrews in the second picture are very close to the ones i had.
but, it had a three way selector like the first one, and, yes, it had a whammy that i used twice. it was also hsh, like the first one, i think - not just a fat strat. but, see, the first guitar is basically a strat copy; the second is more like a prs (and more like my weird black epiphone, which thankfully doesn't have the awful locking mechanism). i had a strat copy, with the hardware more like the prs copy. maybe it was an upgrade, even - which is ironic, given that it was defective.
i mentioned that the ibanez had a warp in the neck - a nasty knot. it was a factory defect, and wasn't playable at places. you couldn't bend around the 8th fret. i would have never ended up with it, otherwise. and, i probably wouldn't have sold it otherwise, either. but, i got to the point where i understood it was a bad guitar and traded it in...
so, is the rx40 a replacement for this?
again - i know the roadstar is a more expensive guitar, but the one i had was defective, so keep that in mind. i'm trying to replace what i actually had, not what i might have had, in theory.
the big differences are:
1) the roadstar had far more expensive hardware, but i'd rather not have the locking mechanism, so i'd prefer the rx40 because it doesn't have that feature. i actually just left it perpetually unlocked! i don't use whammy bars, which is the reason you have these locking mechanisms, and not to stay in tune for normal use. and, i needed weird tunings for, like, soundgarden songs...
2) the roadstar was hsh and had a three way selector switch. the rx40 is hss and has a five way selector switch, which is standard for strats. so, the last two selector switches are a little different - the roadstar had a humbucker in the neck position (which gave it a beefier, gibsonier sound for solos), whereas the rx40 will have a thinner, stratier sound for solos. but, what makes more sense, if you think about it?
i remember my guitar teacher (his name was terry, and he worked at an actual music school. he was mostly a progressive rock and jazz fusion guitarist, running the gamut from hackett to santana to di meola) looking at the guitar and not understanding it. he was a japanese fellow, but a jew ought to ask this question:
"why would you put a single coil in between two humbuckers on a three way selector? if you want to play chords, you do one humbucker; if you want to do leads, you do the other. what do you do with the middle coil?"
if you think about it, what you get with the three way roadstar is:
- the second position combined as a bridge humbucker. sort of.
- the middle position, which nobody uses.
- the fourth position, combined as a neck humbucker. sort of.
so, you're cutting off the first and last positions, really....which means you're eliminating a lot of the point of owning a strat.
what that means is that the roadstar was really just another prs style guitar, just another sg copy, and the middle pickup is just for show - and just to suck your tone by creating noise on the circuit.
in a useable sense, you can create a humbucker in the fourth position on the rx, without losing the fifth position. and, you still get the humbucker at the bridge, which is where you want it on a strat-style guitar. if you want to play a gibson-style guitar, then get one.
so, the roadstar is maybe an example of a design trying too hard to be comprehensive, and instead just coming off as half-assed. they seem to be expensive nowadays, though - although mostly as hhes or as hsses.
i'd rather have the five-way fat strat than the three way selector.
regarding the neck, the rx is plenty fast - which was part of the logic in getting it. and, the neck on the roadstar was broken...
so, yes - i'd consider this a replacement, and a sidegrade, if not an upgrade due to the fact that the roadstar was a defect. i'd rather do away with the locking mechanism, and i'd rather have a five way hss than a three-way hsh. out of all of the combinations, hsh seems to make the least sense to me. as it is, both of my epis have independent humbuckers (and the sg has independent controls), so i don't have any reason to want a strat-like guitar with a humbucker at the neck. that said, i'll take one with a humbucker at the bridge, and one with out it - and that's enough.
that is the next entry in the mega post, and i need to finally figure that out tonight. )
i'm also considering a mini S-S-S squier, but that would be to finish the thought regarding pickup access, and extra to the lost ibanez, from all those years ago. i've never had an sss...but think it's long overdue, and something i may really need to really get through period 3.
(post from july 19th inserted here:
- i also got a fender mini squire for $200 cdn total (including tax):
(mine is red and doesn't say hello kitty)
now, why would i buy myself a guitar for a child? because i needed some single coils, and i know that a guitar with single coils is never going to become my main guitar. i have two epiphones with humbuckers, and that's my usual sound and i'm actually totally happy with it. but, i'm looking for variation, here - that's what i'm doing this month, filling in tonal options in preparation for a recording stage.
i don't have hundreds or thousands of dollars for something more pro, so the question becomes why you'd spend 2-3x as much on a full range squire, or some other fake strat, and then play it twice a year.
i also have exceedingly small hands, so the things this guy is complaining about aren't relevant to me....
i'm also not intending to play much like he is. as i bought it for the thinner pickups, and i'm more of a blues guitarist than a metal guitarist, it's intended use is more for a jimi hendrix, mark knopfler, srv or early corgan type sound. i'm looking for that "sweet strat tone" - or, at least, for the physical characteristics underlying it, to warp mbv-style.
remember: jazzmasters had single coils, too.
i bought the guitar used, but the frets make it clear it's never really been played. minus the cosmetic scratch on the backplate, it's really a brand new guitar, for about $80 (cdn) less than retail. so, i didn't just get a cheap guitar, i got a good deal on a cheap guitar.
i've plugged it in and it works...
this item does not replace a previous one, because i've actually never had an s-s-s strat. the ibanez rx40, once fixed, will replace the defective ibanez hss (or hsh? i don't remember|) that i sold in 2003.
now, let me eat...)
so, i have the ibanez fully replaced in theory, as soon as i solder the rx40 back together. and, i have a new guitar on top of it, as well. great. moving on...
- the next thing in the list is an electronic piano that belonged to my sister, which i can get relevant sounds from various midi patches. if there was something replaceable about this item, it would be the feel of a full-sized digital piano, but that's of little concern to me, and had nothing to do with what i used the device for, which was mostly organ tones through a zoom 1010. that said, i have recently purchased a behringer control surface to replace the keys taken out of the jx and that, together with modern vst technology, is enough to recreate the wavetable synthesis in the item, entirely, without a second thought.
- next is a "green bass". this is opposed to a blue bass, of course. one dare not speak of a purple bass. listen - i don't know what it was, i just know it was green.
i play a lot of bass, but i'm not a bassist in any technical sense. the reason i got stuck playing bass is actually that i was the better musician. no, really. nobody else could do it, so i could have been a whiny snob and demand to play guitar or i could have been pragmatic and played bass. i didn't give a fuck about the image.
so, i need a bass around. just one. and, i need an amp. just one...
the green bass became a black bass, until i bought myself a red washburn with a warped neck, and had to trade it in. then, i borrowed various basses until 2007 when i bought a coffeburst ibanez roadstar II, which has been my bass ever since.
i could not find picture of this on the internet, so here we are. this is a real bass, kids. i think it's a 1986 or 1987 model. active pickups - which are good for bass, if bad for guitar.
this is not a small bass, but the neck is quite skinny, which is good for my itty bitty hands - a problem when i was being altruistic in playing bass for the team, kind of thing. you can get a variety of different tones from the pickups, but i compress it so much that i really just want the drive from the pups.
the sticker was there when i bought it, and was no doubt intended to glow in the dark. i like saturn. sure.
it's pretty much the best bass for me, as a person, so i'm glad i found it.
take that "green" bass. pfft.
- i still have the zoom 1010 & the 440-IIs.
- i do not have a small bass amp to replace the peavey 40 or 50 any more, although i still have a far-too-big-to-play 160 watt fender m-80, which i may use as a cab for the mini amps when there's nobody home. this amp was used for keyboards and guitar effects during the very early recording period, and i still had it for years after, although it mostly got put aside as i was lining everything in instead. you gotta remember that my dad bought most of this stuff, and he was still in the 70s aor mindset where everything needed an amp - keyboards need an amp, drum machine needs an amp, gotta mic the flute through an amp, etc. i just put headphones on and preferred it. that said, it's a definite hole, but one i've left open because i want a combo amp - like a jazz chorus. i like the idea of those mini voxes. if i can find one....but, for now, i'll put the idea aside and rely on the big fender. and, there's good chance i could use it, yeah.
- the initial replacement for the drum kit was the ry30, but the kit was the one thing that was also understood as belonging to him, and that i actually had to ask to use, on occasion - even if it ended up banished to my room, on several occasions. his third wife just couldn't deal with it, and he couldn't get the space from her, until he stopped caring. so, there were various kits of various quality around, bought and sold. sarah had a kit, which is what i used for the recording phase in 2004. i ended up getting a dm5 and still have it, although i've always only used played drums sporadically and for specific sounds.
- how did i replace the tape deck? i used it as an instrument for years. i think the answer is that i moved to digital sampling and digital pitch shifting, did i lose anything from that? some people will talk about certain characteristics of tape, but it's not enough to convince me to go out and emulate it. if i wanted that sound nowadays, i could use the portastudio, but i'd probably just use a time stretch effect in cool edit or cubase.
- i still have one of the two dixon mics i had back then. the other was replaced with the altec 683b. i've added a marantz condenser mic, which is an option i never had. i'm still considering adding a sennheiser 609, but i'm going to old off on it for now.
- the acoustic guitar left down there was replaced with the epiphone electric/acoustic, which was a sidegrade. i think the guitar left there had better specs, but it didn't have a pickup in it.
- i still have larry's mxr phase 90 (original script).
- larry's more advanced tascam portastudio was replaced with a portastudio 414 and eventually an alesis multimix 16:
i'm going to stop there for now, with the sum being that i still need to replace the smaller bass amp as a combo guitar/bass/keyboard amp (which is what i used the peavey for, and sort of can't use the fender for) and i'm still looking at the sennheiser 609 as a mic upgrade.
21:59
sunday, july 25, 2021
i got the bottom of my vox this morning.
i also took a look around for hh bodies and didn't find what i want.
when i got back, though, i responded to an ad i had responded to previously for a "beginner japanese guitar" with a "rehoused bridge", really just expecting to buy the case. after fighting with the rain, i got it back home and realized it was this:
this is a vintage 1973 takeharu guitar. and, yes, the guitar is unplayable due to a warped bridge, but i suspect i can fix it...
i paid $40 for this guitar, including the case.
i also got this for $5:
so, expect some mini xylophone madness coming up!
1:46
i love finding weird guitars and making them awesome.
let's see if i can save this.
1:58
i was honestly planning on putting the epiphone in the case to try to extend it's lifespan, and leaving the "beginner japanese acoustic" on the stand, as a doodle guitar.
but, if i can fix this, it can keep the case!
the bridge oddly has two screws in it that look like action adjustments. you can see one of them here; it's the same on the other side:
what exactly are these screws?
are they action adjustments? if so, i wonder if the guitar just needs a setup - however bizarre it is.
or, are they there to keep the bridge in place?
i can smell the glue under the bridge, so it seems like the bridge snapped off and got glued on. that is, unless somebody tried to mod it to make adjustable action, in which case we might be dealing with a mod gone wrong that could in theory be undone.
i can tell by holding it that this guitar is an upgrade over the epiphone, but it doesn't hold tension in the strings and instantly falls out of tune...
...so, after adjusting the action, i'm going to probably put nylon strings on it, regardless. and, while it has 20 frets, the 21st is playable. :).
1:58
this is the model i had.
i loved the keys.
and, if i'm going to replace it, i want the same one again.
the fan required noise reduction.
3:10
so, an air reed organ is, physically speaking, essentially the same thing as a melodica.
i can probably get very similar tones using the $5 melodica i just ordered from china.
yeah. $5.
which is about what i paid for that organ, back in the day.
i'll keep an eye out for a real bontempi replacement, but one shitty part about the internet is that you don't get the same kind of deals on old gear that you used to at garage sales. it's going to cost upward of $100, and my $5 melodica might just be good enough.
4:35
i'm going to have to blow very, very hard to get the same tone.
that's ok...
4:37
this was clearly written to be in line with existing judicial precedent, which is often how our laws work, here - it's the court that really writes the rules (by interpreting the constitution) and the legislature that's left to codify it.
i don't like this program and would like to abolish it, but what i'd replace it with is a system of universal workers' rights, and this is a good step towards that.
this is not coming from tfws organizing, or any kind of labor action. really, what's pushing it was bad media coverage, which is forcing the sitting liberals to apply existing precedent, without being dragged through the mud to do it.
and, this is a bit of a remnant of the old liberal party, which i had a soft spot for, as a far leftist. it's not empty nationalism - they were the best bourgeois party in the world, and for quite a long time. you can always hope there's still something left..
so, i support this as a first step in overhauling the system, and i hope it helps even the playing field a little between low-wage domestic workers and the temporary slaves being imported to replace them.
20:02
i would actually like to see the agricultural sector fully automated.
this is awful work - there's no way around it. it's why we have robots.
20:16
windsor has a much smaller population density than ottawa, both because it's less developed (there's very few tall buildings) and because it's undergoing decay, whereas ottawa is undergoing growth. so, the cities are moving in opposite directions.
but, they're actually roughly the same size, along the respective rivers:
windsor has less development away from the river, at least for now, but it's not that much of a difference:
the population of the ottawa area (not including gatineau, because then i'd have to include detroit) is about 4x that of windsor, though - due to those differences in density.
you wouldn't think it on a bike, though.
...windsor would just seem like an empty, depopulated, post-apocalyptic ottawa.
21:35
so, where you might see a strip mall in ottawa, you'd instead see industrial buildings that have been abandoned for 40 years in windsor.
and, where you might see a large apartment complex in ottawa, you instead see mid-rise buildings.
21:40
so, i spent the night trying to sort through cheap instrument listings on a couple of sites and spent the day sleeping.
the laptop with my phone appears to have been sabotaged by the cops, and i might have to r einstall.
for the night, i need to finish eating, clean a bit and get back to sorting through those listings, before i put them aside for tomorrow.
21:41
the laptop seems to be ok, after all.
when i tried to turn it on last night, it told me it couldn't read the hard drive - indicating it might not be installed, or had perhaps had the bootloader destroyed. when i tried today, it's fine.
so, i dunno.
i didn't get a chance to really look at it before i went to get the takeharu so i don't really know what happened.
the seller is being evasive about the screws :\. he claims "his friend" gave it to him.
should i bring this into a store before i even touch it just to run it by somebody? it's a $1000 solid body acoustic guitar manufactured in 1973, with some kind of botched mod to the bridge...this isn't the cheap piece of shit i hoped to save...
23:30
i'm going to send them an email with pictures.
23:35
ok, this is a 1976 model with the same screws.
could they be stock, after all?
wtf?
23:54
monday, july 26, 2021
this is a '74 model where they seem to have unscrewed them, answering my question.
0:11
most of the pictures don't have the screws.
but, it seems like enough do to think they're probably stock.
wow.
0:12
this guy's takeharu has the adjustments, too.
ok.
they're stock, and must be for tension.
great.
0:27
the serial number on this guitar is 01032.
i thought it was 1973, due to the model name, but i may have jumped to conclusions - the numbers appar to be chronological across the entire brand, so this is the 1032nd takeharu guitar ever made, and it may be closer to 1971 or 1970, given that they seem to have made around 1000 per year.
there only appear to have been 9000 or so of these guitars ever made - total, all models.
0:33
the takeharu guitars also appear to have been gibson clones.
solid top gibson acoustic guitars from this period nowadays run around $10,000. so, you'll excuse me for having never seen one.
but, the acoustic gibsons from that era have the same action adjustments as this takeharu does, and t hat seems to be the idea.
ok.
well, i'm glad i figure it out first, but my intuition seems to have been correct.
0:37
so, yeah.
this is a gibson hummingbird clone...
if you look at the new models, they still have plastic pegs where the action adjustment used to be, years ago.
my sister stole some old vintage guitars from me years ago...nothing like this one....
0:42
no. no.
i actually think it's a copy of a martin d-35.
yeah. the pictures are much closer...
i'm an electric guitarist, i've never been picky about acoustics. i don't know the different types or models well.
the d-35 is a spitting image, so that must be what it was.
1:07
i have a different take on this.
western canada is a conservative place - it's not a populist place, or a progressive place and it's demographics aren't really changing, substantively - not like these numbers suggest. it's a place that honours tradition, family and religion.
something that's been the case during the pandemic - in fact for years, but it became crystal clear during the pandemic - is that the historically left of centre bourgeois parties (the ndp, the liberals) were more dedicated to a conservative approach to the pandemic (things like lockdowns and severe restrictions on personal freedoms) than the so-called conservative party, which locked down last and opened up first, more akin to the republican party in the united states (which descends from the whigs and is the historically liberal party). and, indeed, kenney's tradition is not that of a western conservative, but that of an american republican, which was the whole thing about the reform movement - it was republican lite. very, very lite. but, nonetheless...
jason kenney is an elitist from toronto, not a westerner. he's a fraud.
in the end, the reform party inherited many of the voters of the conservative party, but it was fundamentally a very different beast. as mentioned previously, much of the remnants of the conservative party actually aligned with the liberal party in order to block the reform party, and sort of took it over from the inside out. but, it left a very conservative population to be kind of left out to dry.
now, when it really matters, it realizes the ploy and is looking to the liberals and ndp as the more conservative options.
so, i think this looks more like realignment than anything else. and, we'll see in the end if this is an epiphany or just a knee-jerk reaction.
but, you would expect a conservative population to listen to the three parties and rank the ndp first, the liberals second and the so-called conservatives last - as the spectrum has flipped rather obviously, and in a way that concretely affects how people are living.
in the end, it's a terrible read by a parachuted in candidate that doesn't understand the region nearly as well as he thinks he does.
7:25
now, here's the other question - what do liberals and anarchists that reject the premise of state dominance do, in response?
i can't vote for the liberals again after this.
it might take 40 years for me to get over this kind of betrayal of liberalism, and i probably don't have 40 years left.
i intend to stay home, or vote green.
7:27
listen, i'm learning about this...i've never even heard of this...
22:48
so, i got a mic stand for $15 today, which will help with recording guitars for period three.
when i got back, i put some oil in my bike chain - something long overdue - and went for a nice ride to let it sink in, rather than just track it around the basement. i decided to take a run around town, looking through pawn shops for old guitars.
i didn't find the gibson-style hh body i was hoping for, and think i've probably exhausted my options, but i'm going to repeat the exercise on friday morning to check some stores that happened to be closed on mondays, which seemed to be quite a few.
i did, however, get another hardcover case for $30. it came with a piece of shit mini classical that has a slightly wider neck than the hohner. i'll probably clean it up and put it up on kijiji for a few bucks. so, that's the new case for the electric/acoustic. and, i'll keep looking for similar style deals to fill out the cases.
i also got a stack of books, for $2-$3 each (the stephenson was a bit more), mostly for the alter-reality, and mostly books i used to own:
- 6/7 of the chronicles of narnia series (in a box set) (i read a few of these, not all of them, as a kid.)
- wuthering heights (i read this in late high school)
- three titles by f. scott fitzgerald (i read some but not all of these in late high school)
- hardcopy covers of the tommyknockers & misery, as well as the first dark tower entry <---i was a huge stephen king fan as a kid and read all of these before 1993
- utopia by thomas more <---this is a text from i think the 8th grade that i remember well, although we did a man for all seasons, rather than utopia
- jonathan swift - gulliver's travels <--- middle school
- arthur c. clarke - 2010: odyseey two - this was read in elementary school
- two texts by neil stephenson - i read snow crash in early university, but have not read quicksilver
i will probably delve further into specific authors in the alter-reality than i did in real life.
- the following are not for the alter-reality
- a biography of glenn gould by mark kingwell
- a compendium of three plays by sophocles - antigone, king oedipus & oedipus at colonus
- timequake by vonnegut (i always grab everything by vonnegut when i see it, but have not read this one)
23:16
the adjustments on the takeharu appear to be stock, and it's actually not particularly unusual to see this feature on older acoustic guitars.
the next step is to understand if the neck is straight and if there's any bows or warps. it seems straight, but i want to be rigorous.
23:22
tuesday, july 27, 2021
this is sobering:
1:14
i eyed the neck on it and it seems ok.
i took the plunge and tightened the strings and it doesn't hold tune, but it's a 50 year old guitar that i suspect has barely been played at all, and appears to have been restringed with old strings.
i'm going to get some nylon strings for it tomorrow,
i actually think it's fine - it's just old and has barely been played. it should stay in tune when i play it more....
...but i'm concerned about the bridge being weak, so we're going to turn it into a classical guitar, first.
5:17
so, i went to call the surgeon in toronto back to confirm my appointment for the 18th, and they're closed until the 3rd :\.
i don't want to buy tickets of any sort until i know for sure that i'm scheduled. and, they didn't tell me what time.
they left the message on wednesday afternoon, but i didn't get the message until friday night. i was planning on calling yesterday, but don't know if they were even open.
so, there's some ambiguity around that until i can figure it out....
i might have to rebook for later in august or in september, but it looks like i have access to this and it's going to happen soon.
12:16
so, this old thing was so detuned...
i tuned it by ear last night and took it way up, only to realize this morning that:
- it was still in tune. sort of. the five fret (except that weird g/b) test worked, but you played a chord and it was nowhere close
- i had tuned it an octave down
- the glue job on the bridge was awful and it's going to go if it stays tense, which is no doubt why it was tuned down
so, it was in tune. but an octave down...and you can't do that on a guitar and expect it to stay in tune. it's all relative - chords don't just transpose down like that. you can maybe take it up or down two or three steps before the intonation gets fucked.
i took it up another octave, and it wouldn't hold tune, but i wouldn't expect it to given the bridge. and, the more i tuned it up, the more obvious it was that the bridge was going to snap off...
the person seems to have used crazy glue rather than wood glue, and probably did not clamp the guitar. it's not going to hold tune unless i'm able to take the bridge off and put it back on properly myself.
so, i've actually overtuned it with the hopes that it will ease, but i'm concerned that it's going to take part of the wood off with it.
do not put crazy glue on a guitar - that is dumb.
....but, if i can get it off clean and sand it down, i can probably salvage it - with the original bridge.
see, i've read up on this a little now, and these action screws don't exist anymore because they create tuning problems. but, i don't care - i want the original hardware on here, and i'll make it stay in tune by playing it.
a fifty year old guitar with a battered bridge like this isn't going to stay in tune unless you play it every day for a month.
so, that's step one - let's get the bridge off. then, let's check the neck properly. and let's get the bridge back on with a new set of strings.
on second thought, if i'm redoing the bridge anyways, i should keep it as an acoustic guitar and plan to do the acoustic project with it. i mean, it's a solid top guitar - that's potentially a ridiculous upgrade.
13:10
so, i was going to do some things today, but i woke up late, so let's skip a day and get back to it tomorrow, instead.
the fridge is better, and i'm going to hope it's good enough. one more major scrub, and then i'll start trying to put it back together.
i took a closer look at the guitar and i don't want to rip it off. i actually tried to chisel some of the glue out, but what i need to do is try to melt it off - which i'm trying to avoid. this is a solid top guitar, i don't want to use a hairdryer on it, but i need to heat the glue up to loosen it...
15:23
so, i didn't want to buy some clamps before i could get it off first...
i used a butcher's knife and the stove, but i was able to get it off with minimal wood loss. there is some damage, but i think it was 98% already there. and, i'm going to try to salvage the bridge, but i might have to replace it.
i think it's as clean as it could have been given the type of glue used to keep it together.
so, i have to sand it down, level it out, but some clamps and some glue to keep it back in place.
the guitar seems to otherwise be in great shape. really. it was just a bad job on the bridge replacement. so, let me save this...
i need to be clear: i'm not a luthier. it's not going to be sellable, in the end - it will have some chips on it. but, i'm more concerned about what it sounds like, and if i can salvage a solid top guitar for recording, i surely must.
a little bit of character from my own hands is really a benefit, in the end.
and, yes - this is a solid top guitar. it's solid spruce. it seems to be a solid back, s well; i'm pretty sure it's mahogany.
17:32
yeah, so the bridge was initially lifting because the finish wasn't cut perfectly, which seems to be a common problem. so, the glue couldn't adhere to the bridge.
whomever tried to fix didn't seem to realize that, and just tried to lock it into place with crazy glue. i don't think they clamped it, and they seem to have been conservative with the glue; in hindsight, that's a good thing, as it would have been impossible to get off had they dabbed enough glue in. like, they just put two or three blobs...
the result is somewhat of a mess, but i think i should be able to clean it where i need it.
so, i need to buy glue and clamps.....let's see if i can do it for less than $30....
19:38
what are these guitars worth?
we live in a market economy, which means information exchanged within it is imperfect, because markets are highly inefficient as a way to set prices - they're really the worst conceivable way to set prices. these were essentially custom-built guitars made by a famous composer/guitarist in japan in the 70s to emulate famous american guitars from the 60s. they were expertly crafted guitars made of good wood and custom-built to meet high-end specs - much like the lawsuit guitars of the era. so, in a real sense, these are the japanese equivalents of a jimmy page signature les paul, or an srv signature stratocaster - and japanese guitarists will recognize this name very quickly, even if north americans have never heard of him. you could not have a reversed scenario, because america is the hegemon, and there would be no famous american guitarists that the japanese are unaware of.
so, if americans had the information that the japanese have, they would price these guitars very high, as they would be seen as high end replicas of the american models they're emulating. they are copies, but they're good copies. unfortunately, because very few were made, americans do not have that information, and are left to rely on stereotypes about "japanese guitars", instead.
to put it tersely, these guitars are frequently absurdly underpriced, because americans harbour a peculiar sort of racism about japanese instruments.
you'll see that here - they come in at very high numbers, by people that understand what they have. it seems like they seem to come down, though, as the market doesn't recognize the quality.
so, they're frequently underpriced....but you can see what people think they ought to be worth.
19:50
hey.
this is the place for weird guitars.
if i can fix this, it will live out it's years with some other weird guitars, and we can all be weird together.
if you have a weird guitar for cheap that needs to find it's clan, send me an email: death.to.koalas@gmail.com.
20:02
so, i opened up about an 1/8th inch at the top of the bridge space on the body so that i can glue the bridge on flush to the straight wood.
i wonder if he actually got it refinished, in the process, because is it not weird for me to find this on a 50 year old guitar? unless, i guess, it's been like that for decades. but, it's possible that the guy that refinished it went over an 1/8th an inch, and then couldn't glue the bridge back on. oops.
but, i'm going to need to get some acetone or something as well, because there's gumps of what actually looks like three types of glue - crazy glue, yellow wood glue and white glue - on both pieces, and i'm never going to succeed in scraping it off.
my best guess is that the white glue failed, so they moved to crazy glue. lol.
20:41
so, the guitar is actually probably worthless because it's essentially been ruined.
but, i bet it'll sound great.
give me your weird guitars!
20:43
those are the best guitars - the worthless ones that sound awesome.
20:44
let's do a total update first before i buy anything else.
already purchased:
- one person coffee maker
- backup fan
- big bookcase
- new broom
- new computer keyboard
- 4 gb backup ram for 32-bit pc, 1 gb backup ram for 16-bit pc, 2 gb of ram for 90s laptop
- micro orange crush 3w amp
- vox ac30 headphone plug
- all four tanktops (one blue, two pink, one purple)
- behringer umx61midi controller
- fender squire mini strat
- micro cassette recorder
- wood flute
- sennheiser replacement headphones
- marantz microphone
- 1 of 3 gig bags
- bottom of the vox combo
- soldering iron
- mini xylophone
- mic stand
- takeharu guitar (w/ case)
- no-name mini classical guitar (w/ case for epiphone electro-acoustic)
- a stack of old books
and this is what is coming:
- pignose (not now though, later) *
- midi guitar*
- 21 fret classical*
- 2 of 3 gig bags
- hannah montana guitar
- audio to midi converter (with extra cord)
- ancestry dna test
*not yet purchased
and, here's where i'm at with this, now:
main guitars:
- custom built prs style guitar with coronet batwing neck, epiphone branding and two open coil independent humbuckers <----lead/jazz guitar with heavy strings
- slightly small epiphone sg with two humbuckers <---rhythm/punk guitar with slightly less heavy strings
side guitars:
- ibanez rx40 fat strat copy. ibanez has been around a long time, and they've built lots of guitars, but i've always seen them as primarily a manufacturer of strat copies - almost all of their guitars are built like strats (and the ones that aren't are built like prses). i have yet to fix the wiring, but i just bought a soldering iron. <-----was intended to be a lead/blues guitar with skinny strings. now, it will probably be used more for rhythm/blues parts.
- mini squier sss strat. <----- this will become the lead/blues guitar
- mini hohner classical <--- i've recorded classically stuff on this
- full size epiphone electro-acoustic <------this is my one electro-acoustic
- hannah montana washburn mini telecaster copy <---lead/electro-classical guitar. i will largely use this for finger picking, although you heard the classic blues tone that guy got out of it.
- audio to midi converter to plug into hardware synths <-----for live tracking into midi. i will use this quite a lot, trust me - both for period 3 & period 4.
- fixable takeharu acoustic guitar? <---if i can fix this, it will no doubt be my go-to acoustic
- second mini classical of unknown quality <---can i get $20 for this?
what's missing?
guitars to find:
- i'm still looking at a midi guitar for polyphony, but it's a weird controller that you can't bend on, so you sort of need both
- i'm looking for a basic paul shape, to put p90s in it. must be a super cheap pawn shop purchase. <----amplified rhythm parts
- a jazzmaster or jaguar shaped guitar with jazzmaster pickups. idea probably put aside for now. <---effects work
- a couple of cheap electrics for weird tunings, etc.
- i've officially given up on the electro-acoustic on ebay, but if i'm going to spend $200 on a chinese electro-acoustic to convert into a classical, does it make more sense to get the ibanez for $350? or to wait?
- if i can find a cheap 12-strong acoustic, i'll grab it, too.
- i was looking at an electric mandolin, but it's probably dropped for now.
i'm still looking at replacement items, starting back up in 1997...
21:29
wednesday, july 28, 2021
ok, so i wanted to make sure i could get the bridge back on flush before i went and bought some c-clamps.
i actually carved out a slightly larger than necessary space with an exacto knife, at the expense of the finish, because the finish doesn't matter if i can't get it in tune. hey, it's worthless as it is, and if this works, i'm never selling it. it's just a little evidence i spent some time on it - i'll wear the break on the finish as a badge of honour. it's minor...and, there's no use in being dishonest about it.
the bridge has been a little more stubborn, but i was able to get enough glue off of it with a nail filer that i'm confident i should be able to get it flush.
i'll work at it a little more after i eat.
the c-clamps are going to cost me about $30 but i should be able to get them tomorrow at home depot. we'll have to see if they have the right kind of glue.
this is this guitar's last chance - it's been reglued repeatedly, so i'm going to do it right and if it fails i'll just keep the case for something else. i can use clamps and glue for something else, too - those aren't throwaway items.
0:49
i should also make sure the neck is straight before i do anything else to it.
i need to eat first.
1:05
so, i'm looking at the part of the guitar i sanded down closely and there's something rather amiss about it.
this is a solid spruce top with the wood grain running parallel to the strings. but, the wood underneath the bridge appears to be running in the other direction. further, if you look closely at the region that ripped off, it seems like there is wood underneath it - and it seems like it's running in the right direction.
i strongly suspect that somebody placed some kind of particle board underneath the bridge.
but, it opens up the question - why?
the most obvious reason is that it needed some support, because there was a crack under it. the less obvious reason would be to raise the action, or otherwise "protect" the finish.
so, this is a difficult choice. if i want to do this right, i want to rip the particle board out. but, i risk exposing whatever the particle board was intended to support.
i want to see if i can find an example. but, the wood looks weird...
the flip side is that if there is a particle board underneath, and it was there to protect the original finish, i guess it did it's job, right? it would mean the wood i pulled up was meant to be damaged.
but, that's only important if the glue job is shoddy, and we're not making that mistake again. if i can get to the actual wood, and it doesn't need the support, i'd rather do that.
i just don't know how to prove it's an addition - and i fear the consequences of my intuition being wrong.
2:43
did it cross your mind that maybe jesus was rejected because he was actually a dick?
13:27
ok, so i posted the pictures in a few places, and the consensus is that the top is plywood, which runs counter to the information on the internet about the model. i guess you've got three options, then:
1) the information is wrong
2) the top was replaced
3) it's some kind of weird hybrid
the usual markers for a solid body guitar hold, but...if you rip the top off and it's plywood, then it's plywood, whatever the documentation says.
so, is this worth fixing? well, i couldn't get it in tune, and when i tried the action was very high.
so, let me check the neck as best i can. if the neck looks good, i'll bother. if not, i'll just keep the case. maybe i'll put it up on ebay or something...
i don't know what it's going to sound like, but i know it's not worth bothering with if i can't play it.
15:23
there would appear to be two pieces under the body in this place - one is the backplate, and the second seems to be a brace for it. they're both relatively thick pieces of wood.
besides the repeated bad bridge repairs, the guitar is in good shape, and i don't have reason to think it's weak under there:
those grooves are where the wood came off, and what i'm trying to figure out is if i want to scrape that layer off (to keep the action low) or try to keep it as close to how it is as possible.
the wood fibers are still on the bridge, and i've been careful not to remove then.
you can see the extra hole for the action.
15:28
thursday, july 29, 2021
i couldn't sleep this morning because it was so dry and dusty (and smoky) in here that my body just wouldn't let me go. i can't sleep in dry, dirty air like that - i need clean and most.
tonight, i need to determine what i'm doing with that neck...
but, i took the opportunity to sort through some period 3 era pictures when i woke up. that cover art with the statue of liberty is sort of neat, but it's not permanent. i sent sarah a text asking her to contribute, but she hasn't responded. she responds sometimes...and, it's always clear that she sees me as an ex-boyfriend, rather than as a friend. that wasn't always true, but you can only bring a horse to water.
anyways, i found a few shots for use with cover art.
i've tried to avoid posting pictures of sarah, but at this point it doesn't matter anymore, and i don't really know how to post this and manage to remove her from it - it seems impossible.
you probably wouldn't be able to recognize her today from 20 year old photos, and that's really been my main concern in not posting them.
so, this is a picture taken right before we left for bc. this was a total ambush - i had no idea it was coming. her intent (as explained by her), was to catch me hunched over and kiss me on the lips. so, the photo was intended to be of me leaned over the guitar, and her leaned over me; as she was kissing me, i was kissing my guitar. a love triangle, of sorts. it was a reflection of her insecurity around where my affections truly lay, as she frequently accused me of expressing and investing more passion and emotion into the guitar. why can't i play her like i play that guitar? well...she wouldn't stay in tune, to begin with....
but, i sat up when she embraced me (i had no idea what she was doing...) and sort of ruined the shot.
i think this is a good back cover for the acoustic project and am going to file it away for that purpose:
0:34
this was taken in the lower mainland of bc, somewhere up the strip between osoyoos and penticton. i want to say penticton...
we were fighting over something (i don't remember what), and it started just pouring, so we had to stop and immediately seek shelter. we met working as employees in a coffee shop, so we had this kind of weird instinct to cooperate in strangely effective ways, and that just completely overpowered. when the downpour had subsided, this just absolutely vivid and surreal double rainbow popped into the atmosphere in front of us - and it was so close that it felt like you could reach out and touch it (although, of course, you could not). she's kind of a primitive, pagan irish girl at heart; that meant something to her that i can only analyze metaphorically, in terms of rebirths and new beginnings.
the picture only captures the moment vaguely. if this was done right, it would be dripping with paint, like something out of what dreams may come, or perhaps pleasantville. but, it's a nice shot, nonetheless.
i wish i had something better and am going to ask her a second time...
1:11
this is a landscape shot of the ottawa river, standing from the confederation alexandra bridge - gatineau is on the right and ottawa is on the left. it took me a minute to be sure about that, but i was able to cross reference it fairly well on google maps:
as she would have taken this picture in early 2004 (i have a set of doubles she gave me), it is probably a more appropriate front cover for the art show demo.
she used to climb that old rickety bridge like it was monkey bars, to try to get up to catch the view. it drove me nuts. that picture was probably taken climbed up the middle of the bridge a good ways...
6:28
you know, if my memory serves me, mulder got more information handing people 20s than he did as an investigator, of any sort.
just saying, s'all.
6:37
and, i'm going to post these 'cause they're kind of cute.
again - the logic is that it would be very difficult to id her from these shots, unless you already knew her, in which case you surely remember me.
this was in spring, 2004 - and is the most "off hormones" shot you'll ever see me post anywhere (that's in major hill's park, with the art gallery, in ottawa, in the background):
this would have been very late 2003 or very early 2004:
she took dozens of these...
you can see the pattern.
6:45
ok, so i've decided the neck on this guitar is very healthy. it's pointing at about a 30 degree angle downwards, which is surprising given the issues with the bridge. but, it might mean the truss was pulled all the way down. i suspect i'll have to adjust it, but that's ok - i just didn't want to have to reset it.
i'll need to get strings on, first.
regarding the bridge and how the guitar was/is made, somebody on one of the forums suggested i shine on a flashlight through the holes to determine what's in there, and the results are kind of inconclusive - the action holes look like solid top (although the wood grain is still moving in the wrong direction), whereas the string holes have clear layers (two for a reinforced bridge plate and two for the top, itself). on top of that, the age of the wood is visibly different.
so, it seems like somebody tried to reinforce the plate from the bottom and may have done some surgery to the top, although it's hard to tell. that means i want to avoid shaving it further, and rather want to continue with the reinforcement as best as possible.
i want this to be an acoustic guitar for recording, but i need to convince myself it can handle the tension, first. so, i'm going to start by stringing it with ball wound classical strings and see what happens. can i even hit that 21st fret? if it holds tune and plays well, i'll have to decide whether i want to keep it as a classical or move to the next higher tension, which is probably some heritage-designed steel string guitars that run a little less than 100 lb. and, if that's not good enough, i can look at silk & bronze, if i think it's workable.
so, i'm going to need the following:
- two c-clamps
- a small sanding block
- some title bond wood glue
- some ball end classical strings
unfortunately, i need a nap.
8:39
should i do two c-clamps or one c-clamp with one of those guitar bridge things?
8:42
so, i did some more bloodwork and i got some weird results.
- my vitamin d went down, which makes no sense. i've been out in the sun all month, i've been on vitamin d pills and i've been eating eggs almost every day. but, my pth was highish and my calcium remains highish. the only logical way to look at it is that my body is actually reducing d as a protective mechanism to prevent too much calcium absorption, but it's not clear if that's due to bone loss or due to a lot of cheese and a lot of yogurt.
- my estradiol is higher than i've ever seen it, at 563 pmol/l. i'm used to that being in the high 300s or low 400s. this is very good for protective bone health. so, shifting to 2x2 twice a day(instead of 1x2, 4x a day) to compensate for the reduced absorption seems to be helping. and, i'm absorbing estrogen just fine, at least.
- my ferritin is up in the 40s, and my circulating iron is now high. i didn't do a cbc or a reticulocyte on this day...but, the iron might have been high due to a large amount of bicycling earlier in the week. the logic is that if you exercise a lot then your body needs to pull more iron from the stores to replenish the blood, because you're in need of more oxygen to power all of the work you're doing. it would essentially be a symptom of overexertion. i need that up over 100, but it's definitely moving in the right direction.
i'm considering just cancelling the virtual colonoscopy. i think it's clear that i was doing too much exercise for a normal iron intake, and it caught up to me. i don't want to cut down the amount of exercise i'm doing, so i should get used to taking iron pills. but, hopefully i can cut down from daily to weekly once i get up past a certain amount.
regarding the d, i don't know how to react, right now. i put myself on d because i was worried about levels falling in the winter. i don't have absorption problems, and i'm getting plenty of sun. it literally makes no sense, whatsoever.
data fluctuates. and, i think that the right thing to do is discard this as a weird reading - for now. i've been eating a little less this month, because i just eat less in the summer, and because i've been too busy out exercising. but, i've also been eating my calcium independently from my iron, in an attempt to stop it from blocking the iron.
i have no reason to think i'm not able to absorb the d in pill form. so, if my body is cutting it, it must be because it doesn't want it.
but, let's see what it says next month. 'cause i think this is just a bad read.
22:48
friday, july 30, 2021
i think that my iron is high enough now that i'm going to move to every second day instead of every day and see where it comes up next month.
so long as i'm still moving in the right direction, that's fine.
and, i may want to start cutting it down to half the dose after that.
0:01
i've got 11 pills left on the rx from april, so that should last me most of the month.
0:03
the team has a responsibility to select the best player available, and his legal concerns are only relevant insofar as they interfere with his ability to perform.
the nhl is not the boy scouts. nobody should care about his conduct off the ice - it's not relevant.
so, take your moral bullshit and fuck off.
3:19
no, listen - this is a perfect example of the liberals' recent turn to the extreme traditionalist right. this is all about chivalry and noblesse oblige - it's not liberalism.
liberals are suppose to argue that if you make a mistake then you make amends and move on, you don't suffer the consequences of fire and brimstone for eternity.
that's conservative bullshit.
and, if you're going to wave it around, you can fuck off.
3:30
there was a piece of legislation brought in by a previous incarnation of the liberals called the young offender's act.
maybe our dauphin should drop the right-wing bullshit for a minute and dust it off and try to understand what it's about.
3:34
this is a quick summary of the situation, which is quite correct - and i agree that buying local is the right approach, in principle. but, not every place is safe to grow food, and i'm overly apprehensive about buying food sold to me on the side of a highway, especially when i suspect it was also grown on the side of one. what corporate food production has over local food production is a larger separation from car exhaust, which is a much more damaging pollutant than any pesticide used for growing - all of which are technically safe, according to the scientific studies.
i try to buy local greenhouse items - in stores - whenever possible. this is produce grown without touching the polluted soil, without breathing in dirty outside air and transported to market without sitting outside in the filth for long periods. i'd like to see the situation localized and automated, but i want stronger regulations regarding background toxins. electric trains would be a better transport method than trucks, as well.
in the mean time, i'd suggest reducing stress around it. the underlying causes of food exposure to pollutants (mostly generated by combustion engines) can only be resolved with a full carbon transition, a new industrial revolution based on renewables that actually understands the damage we've already done and embraces the science to clean it up.
15:11
no tests for aids, herpes or syphilis though, huh?
dumb.
17:01
"sure - 69% of the people in this bar have gonorrhea, and 37% have herpes, but we still think it's important to protect the almost exclusively under 40 crowd from the most recent variant of the common cold."
dumb.
dumb du-du-dumb.
17:05
have you ever been to marble bar in detroit?
trust me - at least 69% of the people there have gonorrhea.
17:06
what if we just all wear full body hazmat suits shaped like condoms?
17:13
listen...
some exposure to transmittable diseases - be they herpes or covid-19 - is a part of the risk calculation in entering a dirty, seedy bar in detroit.
and, any bar that insists on trying to undo that will end up empty.
17:14
i would presume there's nobody checking papers in the park.
guess i might be wrong, though.
17:32
wait, they closed the park, too.
fuckers.
17:36
so, i also picked up some c-clamps and a sanding block at home depot yesterday, and have some glue coming in the mail.
i grabbed a few more books as well, including some bradbury, which is relevant for the alter-reality.
is this going to work? i think it should.
i want to actually start writing this weekend. and, how am i going to do this? i wanted to started in 2019 and do it in real-time...
the real-time portion of the blog doesn't really get interesting until about 1993 or 1994, but i still wanted to be clicked into it by now.
if i do monthly entries every week, i can catch up by early 2022. i guess i got my first electric guitar around early 1992, so that's a reasonable catch up point.
and, these little asimov and bradbury tests can be read by an adult in an afternoon.
i needed to do the filing on the main computer before i got back to recording, and i'm actually pretty close.
and, if i can get back to the blogging process on monday, i guess i'm getting back to the diet, first.
i need to look over the last few weeks and refocus, but i think i stopped in mid-june.
18:59
i should also point out that my alp crashed from 61/63 last time to 50 this time. alp generally suggests bone turnover around 130+; it's considered to be low around 38sh. as i am, now, over 40, i should be experiencing some bone thinning. so, an alp of 50 at my age would seem to be pretty weird. the safe range for somebody my age is under 70.
that's more evidence that i'm possibly building bone, at the age of 40, due to the excess of estrogen, which would be great news if true, and maybe some evidence that i ought to stay on this high dosage for quite a while longer, post-orchiectomy.
19:52
saturday, july 31, 2021
i'm not able to get out anywhere fun right now, so here's one of my new shirts:
2:10
the constantly shifting targets aren't helpful in building confidence that getting vaccinated is a worthwhile expenditure of a young person's time. it was the 60s, then the 70s - now the 90s? what they're telling me is that this is never going to end, and i shouldn't waste my time with it.
and, my guess is that's actually the tactic.
this is a seasonal disease - what they're calling a "4th wave" is just the second iteration of a seasonal virus, that will ease up in the spring (as it has the last two years) and come back every fall. the reason they're shifting targets like this is that they fully expect that this fall is going to still probably be higher than the average flu total, and they don't want to undo too many things before bringing in further restrictions.
i expect there to be further restrictions this fall in most of canada, because the number of vaccinations isn't really the deciding factor, it's going to have more to do with the remnant aging weak. and, if we keep applying unrealistic metrics and utopian visions, we're going to stay in and out of lockdown here for the next twenty years, until the oldest people in the society have immunity built up from when they were younger.
the takeaway, kids, is that, no, getting vaccinated won't end the restrictions sooner - if you hadn't figured that out, yet. they'll just keep increasing the number. because it actually doesn't matter how many people get vaccinated, insofar as the effect on the very old is concerned.
and, you should resent being scapegoated, too - this is not your fault. you're not the ones dragging the society down, and you're not the ones monopolizing resources. you're just trying to live normal, happy lives. and, i'm on your side, and support your right to make autonomous decisions about your bodies.
15:22
where was i?
it's saturday night (31st).
- i slept in until the afternoon today and haven't done anything
- yesterday was a short day that never got started. the one thing i did do was clean the fridge, a little more. or, try to, anyways.
- thursday, i got out to get some bloodwork, bought some books, got some clamps
- tuesday & wednesday were spent looking at the takeharu guitar
- monday, i went to get the mic stand, and got some books
- sunday was a kind of a down day
- saturday (24th) was a running around day, and i got the takeharu, the bottom of the vox (video coming...) and the mini xylophone
- most of last week (18th-23rd)) was spent sorting through kijiji, etc ads and also in researching gear
- 17th, these were uploaded, and i started working on a big post about the old gear i had and how to replace it.
- on the 16th, i uploaded a rough mix of the lost symphony to the trivial group lp as a placeholder, uploaded some rough xenophanes mixes, bought a microcasette, did some orange testing...
- on the 15th, i was looking at dna sequencing and spent a lot of time filing the recording machine
- on the 14th, i decided to get a pignose when i went in to get the mini vox (and didn't, yet)
- i got a mini vox and a mini orange to go with the mini ms-2
- on sunday morning / monday night (11/12th), i started adding gear to the alter-reality page, which included a ms-2 mini marshall amp and i started researching mini-amps for period 3 recording...
- friday the 9th was back to alter-reality,
- the rest of the week was spent looking at blood tests, genetics, shopping online & cleaning./
- i got some more bloodwork on the 5th
- i stopped filling in the blog on monday morning (the 4th)
- the bookcase (required to access cds for reviews) came in on the 2nd
- on the 1st, i decided july would be extremely productive and continued transferring the facebook page to the new blog, which was my friday project
so.
let's update this first:
already purchased:
- one person coffee maker
- backup fan
- big bookcase
- new broom
- new computer keyboard
- 4 gb backup ram for 32-bit pc, 1 gb backup ram for 16-bit pc, 2 gb of ram for 90s laptop
- micro orange crush 3w amp
- vox ac30 headphone plug
- all four tanktops (one blue, two pink, one purple)
- behringer umx61midi controller
- fender squire mini strat
- micro cassette recorder
- wood flute
- sennheiser replacement headphones
- marantz microphone
- 2 of 3 gig bags
- bottom of the vox combo
- soldering iron, solder & a pink pool thing for a sponge
- mini xylophone
- mic stand
- takeharu guitar (w/ case)
- no-name mini classical guitar (w/ case for epiphone electro-acoustic)
- a stack of old books
- ancestry dna test
- another stack of old books
- 3 c-clamps, wood glue & a sanding block
these items are in a weird limbo due to alipay not working correctly with paypal:
- xylophone sticks
- melodica
and this is what is coming:
- pignose (not now though, later) *
- midi guitar*
- 21 fret classical*
- 1 of 3 gig bags
- hannah montana guitar
- audio to midi converter (with extra cord)
i don't want to buy anything else until i can get some tickets to toronto for the orchiectomy.
and, because i think we're going back into lockdown, i need to take advantage of this time window as best i can. so, i need to call on tuesday and get this booked.
for now, i need to start my first post in the alter-reality and take it from there. then, i'm going to want to finish that gear replacement post. it's the end of the month, so i need to clean - although this is being bottlenecked by the fridge. and, i can get back to the blog clean-up, maybe, early in the week.
again, this is the intent:
- friday: alter-reality
- sat--->mon: period 3 recording
- tues--->thurs: liner note rebuild (and general writing workthrough)
the last diet update was on may 19th.
so, let's do this one thing at a time and hope i don't get any other major disruptions in what i'm doing.
but, i may have to ask him to take the fridge out of here - i've given it until tuesday to decide.
22:02
is this too much work?
i think so, yes.
but, i'm stuck...i have to just hit it head on and see what happens.
so, i was hoping to approach the alter-reality in a more ordered manner, but it's not going to be possible due to the disgusting fridge, that i may have to take him to court over. and, i'm apparently stuck inside until next spring, at the earliest. so, let's just try to catch up...
july kind of sucked in terms of productivity, although i got a lot of gear that i'll make good use of. let's make august the most productive month ever, instead.
22:31
so, i found this from 1999 at the tripod site, which finally let me in...
Automatically generated by MusicCat
Last updated on 9/27/99
by inri
the crosswinds site is still dead.
i think this is the earliest file i have.
Music Collection
| 1000 Homo DJ's | Supernaut | CD |
| 54-40 | Dear Dear | CS |
| Smilin' Buddha Cabaret | CS | |
| Alice In Chains | Facelift | CD |
| Dirt | CS | |
| Jar Of Flies | CD | |
| Alice In Chains | CD | |
| Nothing Safe | CD | |
| Autechre | Bass Cadet | CD |
| Barenaked Ladies | Gordon | CD |
| Born On A Pirate Ship | CD | |
| Borland | C++ | CD |
| Brian Eno | Ambient 1/ Music For Airports | CD |
| Bush | Sixteen Stone | CS |
| Razorblade Suitcase | CD | |
| Deconstructed | CD | |
| Candlebox | Candlebox | CS |
| Lucy | CS | |
| Canon | Canon Creative | CD |
| cEvin Key | Music For Cats | CD |
| Chris Connelly | Phenobarb Bambalam | CD |
| Coil | Horse Rotorvator | CD |
| Love's Secret Domain | CD | |
| The Snow | CD | |
| Bee Stings | CD | |
| Musick To Play In The Dark Volume 1 | CD | |
| Songs Of The Week | 2-CD | |
| Collective Soul | Hints, allegations, and things left unsaid | CS |
| Collective Soul | CS | |
| Disciplined Breakdown | CD | |
| Coma Lodge | What Kind of mind do you have? | CD |
| Cop Shoot Cop | White Noise | CD |
| Cyberaktif | Temper | CD |
| David Bowie | Aladdin Sane | CD |
| 1. Outside | CD | |
| The Hearts Filthy Lesson | CD | |
| Earthling In The Ciity | CD | |
| I'm Afraid Of Americans | CD | |
| Earthling | CD | |
| Dead Voices On Air | Hafted Maul | CD |
| New Words Machine | CD | |
| Piss Frond | 2-CD | |
| Die Warzau | Big Electric Metal Bass Face | CD |
| Engine | CD | |
| DMSO: DRUGMURDERSEXORGY | Marezine Halloween | CD |
| Phantom Freakshow | CD | |
| Doubting Thomas | Father Don't Cry | CD |
| Download | Furnace | CD |
| Microscopic | CD | |
| Sidewinder | CD | |
| III | CD | |
| The Eyes Of Stanley Pain | CD | |
| Eco-Hed | S/t | CD |
| Econoline Crush | Purge | CD |
| Affliction | CD | |
| The Devil You Know | CD | |
| Einsturzende Neubauten | Tabula Rasa | CD |
| Eleven | S/T | CD |
| Filter | Erkenntnis Theorie | CD |
| Short Bus | CS | |
| Short Bus | CD | |
| Title Of Record | CD | |
| Firewater | The Ponzi Scheme 3 track promo | CD |
| Foetus | Thaw | CD |
| Butterfly Potion | CD | |
| Boil | CD | |
| Null / Void | 2-CD | |
| Foofighters | Foofighters | CS |
| Foofighters | CD | |
| Big Me | CD | |
| The Color And The Shape | CD | |
| Frank Zappa | Apostrophe'/Overnight Sensation | CD |
| Joe's Garage Acts 1-3 | 2-CD | |
| Garbage | Garbage | CS |
| 20-May-98 | 2-CD | |
| Version 2.0 | CD | |
| Version 1.0 Rarities | CD | |
| Genesis | Trespass | CD |
| Selling England By The Pound | CD | |
| The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway | 2-CD | |
| Wind & Wuthering | CD | |
| A Trick Of The Tail | CD | |
| Invisible Touch | CD | |
| God Lives Underwater | EP | CD |
| Life In The So Called Space Age | CD | |
| Rearrange | CD | |
| God Speed You Black Emperor! | F#A#oo | CD |
| Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada | CD | |
| Gowan | (You're A) Strange Animal | CS |
| Gravity Kills | Gravity Kills | CD |
| Manipulated | CD | |
| Perversion | CD | |
| Hater | Hater | CD |
| Hewlitt-Packard | Cd Writer Plus Software Package | 3-CD |
| Hilt | Call The Ambulance Before I Hurt Myself | CD |
| Get Stuck | CD | |
| Journey To The Centre Of The Bowl | CD | |
| Hole | Live Through This | CS |
| I Mother Earth | Dig | CS |
| Scenery And Fish | CD | |
| Blue Green Orange | CD | |
| IBM | World Book Encyclopedia | 2-CD |
| id Software | Doom II | CD |
| Quake 1 + 2 + addons | CD | |
| inri | inri | CD |
| inrimake | CD | |
| inriched | CD | |
| warning | CD | |
| Jane's Addiction | Nothing's Shocking | CD |
| Jesus H. Christ | H | CS |
| John Lennon | Shaved Fish | CD |
| Joy Division | Still | CD |
| Killing Joke | Changes - Spiral Tribe Mixes | CD |
| King Crimson | The Concise King Crimson | CD |
| AAA Sampler | CD | |
| KMFDM | UAIOE | CD |
| Angst | CD | |
| Naive (Hell To Go) | CD | |
| Light | CD | |
| Brute | CD | |
| Nihil | CD | |
| Xtort | CD | |
| Adios | CD | |
| KMFDM Vs. Pig | Sin Sex & Salvation | CD |
| Korn | Korn | CD |
| Life is peachy | CS | |
| Follow The Leader | CD | |
| Limblifter | Limblifter | CS |
| Live | Mental Jewelry | CS |
| Throwing Copper | CS | |
| Secret Samadhi | CS | |
| Ludwig Van Beethoven | Piano Concerto #2 ; Symphony #7 | CD |
| Machine Gun Kelly | Boy In A Mansuit | CD |
| Machines Of Loving Grace | S/T | CD |
| Mad Season | Above | CS |
| Mark Lanegan | Whiskey For The Holy Ghost | CD |
| meathead | Dick Smoker Plus (w/ Cop Shoot Cop) | CD |
| Micronaut | S/t | CD |
| MicroProse | Civilization II | CD |
| Microsoft | VB4 | CD |
| VB5 | CD | |
| VB5, Learning Edition | 2-CD | |
| Mastering VB5 | CD | |
| Learn VB5! | CD | |
| Encarta 97 Encyclopedia | 2-CD | |
| Developer Network Library - Visual Studio 97 | CD | |
| Windows 98 | CD | |
| Ministry | Twitch | CD |
| 12 Inch Singles | CD | |
| The Land Of Rape And Honey | CD | |
| The Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste | CD | |
| In Case You didn't Feel Like Showing Up | CD | |
| KEIANHNH (Psalm 69) | CD | |
| Filth Pig | CD | |
| The Dark Side Of The Spoon | CD | |
| Moby | Animal Rights | CD |
| Honey | CD | |
| Play | CD | |
| Mother Love Bone | Mother Love Bone | 2-CD |
| Muslimgauze | Maroon | CD |
| Neil Young | Live Rust | CD |
| Mirrorball | CD | |
| Nine Inch Nails | Purest Feeling | CD |
| Pretty Hate Machine | CD | |
| Down In It | CD | |
| Head Like A Hole (Opal) | CD | |
| By Bizarre Hands | CD | |
| Head Like A Hole | CD | |
| Sin | CD | |
| Fixed (American) | CD | |
| Demos And Remixes | CD | |
| Fixed | CS | |
| Broken | CD | |
| Broken Rarities | CD | |
| Crossed Nails | CD | |
| The Downward Spiral | CD | |
| Disturbed | CD | |
| Closer | 2-CD | |
| March Of The Pigs | CD | |
| Further Down The Spiral | CD | |
| Further Down The Spiral V2.0 | CD | |
| Children Of The Night | CD | |
| Blue Lies | CD | |
| Quake Soundtrack | CD | |
| The Perfect Drug | CD | |
| Closure | VHS | |
| The Perfect Drug (complete) | CD | |
| Videos (89-98) | CD | |
| Related Side Projects Vol. 1 | CD | |
| The Fragile | 2-CD | |
| Multimedia Disc | CD | |
| The Day The World Went Away | CD | |
| Nirvana | Bleach | CD |
| 10/08/89 | CD | |
| Bleach | CS | |
| Nevermind | CS | |
| Smells Like Teen Spirit | CD | |
| Lithium | CD | |
| Live In Minneapolis 10/14/91 | CD | |
| 082591 w/misc. covers | CD | |
| Nevermind | CD | |
| Incesticide | CD | |
| Incesticide | CS | |
| Heart Shaped Box | CD | |
| In Utero | CS | |
| Roma | CD | |
| Unplugged In New York | CS | |
| Rarities | CS | |
| Live From The Muddy Banks Of The Wishkah | CS | |
| Nitzer Ebb | Showtime | CD |
| Godhead | CD | |
| Ebbhead | CD | |
| Option 30 | Option 30 | CD |
| Our Lady Peace | Naveed | CD |
| Naveed | CS | |
| Clumsy | CS | |
| Happiness Is Not A Fish That You Can Catch | CD | |
| Pearl Jam | 011090 | CD |
| Ten | CS | |
| Vs. | CD | |
| Vitalogy | CD | |
| Merkinball | CD | |
| No Code | CS | |
| Yield | CD | |
| Peter Gabriel | Self-Titled | CD |
| Security | CD | |
| So | CD | |
| Passion | CD | |
| Us | CD | |
| Phil Western | The Escapist | CD |
| Philip Glass | Koyaanisqatsi Soundtrack | CD |
| Pigface | Truth Will Out | CD |
| Pink Floyd | Animals | CD |
| The Final Cut | CD | |
| A Momentary Lapse Of Reason | CD | |
| Prick | Prick | CD |
| PTP | S/T | CD |
| Puff Daddy | Victory Remixes | CD |
| Radiohead | Pablo Honey | CS |
| The Bends | CD | |
| OK Computer | CS | |
| Karma Police | CD | |
| Live From The 10 Spot | CD | |
| Red Hot Chili Peppers | The Best Of The Red Hot Chili Peppers | CD |
| One Hot Minute | CS | |
| Californication | CD | |
| REM | Murmer | CS |
| Green | CD | |
| Out Of Time | CS | |
| Automatic For The People | CD | |
| Automatic For The People | CS | |
| New Adventures in Hi-Fi | CS | |
| E-Bow The Letter (Colectors Edition) | CD | |
| Up | CD | |
| Daysleeper | CD | |
| Revolting Cocks | Beers, Steers + Queers | CD |
| Beers, Steers And Queers (Remixes) | CD | |
| Ric Ocasek | Troublizing | CD |
| Rx | Beside Toxicology | CD |
| Scott Weiland | 12 Bar Blues | CD |
| Shudder To Think | First Love, Last Rites | CD |
| Silverchair | Frogstomp | CS |
| Sister Machine Gun | Sins Of The Flesh | CD |
| Burn | CD | |
| Metropolis | CD | |
| [R]evolution | CD | |
| Skinny Puppy | Remission | CD |
| Bites | CD | |
| Live In Horst 86 | CD | |
| Fractal Zoom | CD | |
| Cleanse Fold And Manipulate | CD | |
| Addiction | CD | |
| VIVIsectVI | CD | |
| Testure | CD | |
| 12 Inch Anthology | CD | |
| Rabies | CD | |
| Too Dark Park | CD | |
| Worlock | CD | |
| Tormentor | CD | |
| Ain't It Dead Yet? | CD | |
| Last Rights | CD | |
| Inquisition | CD | |
| Brap : Back And Forth Vol 3 + 4 | 2-CD | |
| The Process | CD | |
| Remix Dys Temper | CD | |
| Process Demos/Outtakes | CD | |
| Skold | S/T | CD |
| Sonic Youth | Confusion Is Sex/Kill Your Idols | CD |
| Sister | CD | |
| Goo | CD | |
| Dirty | CD | |
| Washing Machine | CD | |
| Muzikale Vergezichten | CD | |
| Perspectives Musicales syr #1 | CD | |
| Silver Sessions (Jason Knuth) | CD | |
| Soundgarden | Flower | CD |
| Louder Than Love | CD | |
| Big Dumb Sex | CD | |
| Badmotorfinger / SOMMS | 2-CD | |
| Badmotorfinger | CS | |
| Superunknown | CS | |
| Songs From The Superunknown | CD | |
| Down On The Upside | CS | |
| Live In Austin Texas | CD | |
| Sponge | Rottong Pinata | CS |
| Wax Ecstatic | CS | |
| New Pop Sunday | CD | |
| Squarepusher | Music is Rotted One Note | CD |
| Stabbing Westward | Early Demoes | CD |
| Ungod | CD | |
| Wither Blister Burn And Peel | CD | |
| Mailing List Compilation Video | VHS | |
| Darkest Days | CD | |
| Stevie Ray Vaughn | Texas Flood | CD |
| Couldn't Stand The Weather | CD | |
| Soul To Soul | CD | |
| In Step | CD | |
| The Sky Is Crying | CD | |
| Stone Temple Pilots | Core | CS |
| Purple | CS | |
| Sunny Day Real Estate | Sunny Day Real Estate | CD |
| Radio Sampler | CD | |
| Swans | Omniscience | CD |
| Omniscience | CS | |
| Sweet 75 | S/T | CD |
| Talkshow | Talkshow | CD |
| Tears For Fears | Songs From The Big Chair | CS |
| Temple Of The Dog | S/T | CD |
| The Beatles | The Beatles (AKA The White Album) | 2-CD |
| The Innocent | Livin' In The Street | CD |
| The KLF | Doctorin' The Tardis | CD |
| The White Room | CD | |
| The Meat Puppets | Too High to Die | CS |
| No Joke | CS | |
| The Offspring | Ignition | CS |
| The Year That Punk Broke | CD | |
| Smash | CS | |
| Ixnay On The Hombre | CS | |
| The Offspring | CS | |
| The Presidents Of The United States Of America | The Presidents Of The United States Of America | CS |
| The Prodigy | The Fat Of The Land | CD |
| The Smashing Pumpkins | 100588 | CD |
| 89 Demo Tapes | CD | |
| 160690 | CD | |
| Lull | CD | |
| 02/12/91 | CD | |
| Gish | CD | |
| Tribute To Blue Oyster Cult | CD | |
| Peel Sessions | CD | |
| I Am One | CD | |
| Siamese Dream | CS | |
| Disarm | CD | |
| Cherub Rock | CD | |
| Mashed Potatoes ? | CD | |
| Today | CD | |
| Siamese Dream | CD | |
| Pisces Iscariot | CS | |
| Pisces Iscariot | CD | |
| Earphoria | CD | |
| Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness | CS | |
| Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness | 2-CD | |
| Double Door | 2-CD | |
| 1995 Demo Tape | CD | |
| 666 | CD | |
| The World Is A Vampire | CD | |
| Sequence 4 | CD | |
| Tonight, Tonight | CD | |
| Zero | CD | |
| 1979 remixes (Holland import) | CD | |
| The Aeroplane Flies High (Condensed) | CD | |
| Mellow, Jolly And The Infinite Madness | CD | |
| 1979 | CD | |
| 33 | CD | |
| Bullet With Butterfly Wings | CD | |
| The End Is The Beginning Is The End (all mixes) | CD | |
| The End Is The Beginning Is The End Fluke Mixes (UK Promo) | CD | |
| Children Of Gotham | CD | |
| Perfect | CD | |
| Adore | CD | |
| 05.19.98 Aula Magna; Lisbon, PT + misc | 2-CD | |
| 103198 | CD | |
| Intimate And Interactive | CD | |
| Viper Room | CD | |
| Perfect EP | CD | |
| Ava Adore | CD | |
| 041099 | 2-CD | |
| 042399 | CD | |
| Vinyl + 042399 | CD | |
| live 2 | CS | |
| live 3 | CS | |
| live 1 | CS | |
| The Tea Party | S/T | CD |
| Splendor Solis | CS | |
| The Edges Of Twilight | CD | |
| Alahambra | ECD | |
| Transmission | CD | |
| TRIPtych | CD | |
| The Tear Garden | Tired Eyes Slowly Burning | CD |
| To Be An Angel Blind, The Crippled Soul Divide | CD | |
| The Who | Meaty, Beaty, Big And Bouncy | CD |
| Who's Next | CD | |
| Quadrophenia | CD | |
| Tool | Undertow | CD |
| Aenima | CD | |
| U2 | War | CD |
| Under A Blood Red Sky | CD | |
| The Joshua Tree | CS | |
| The Joshua Tree | CD | |
| Achtung Baby | CD | |
| Mysterious Ways | CD | |
| Zooropa | CS | |
| Zooropa | CD | |
| Pop | CD | |
| Please | CD | |
| The Best Of 1980-1990 & B-Sides | 2-CD | |
| US Robotics | 56k Installation Disc | CD |
| Various | The Tyranny Of The Beat | CD |
| In Defense Of Animals | CD | |
| Sweet Relief II: Gravity Of The Situation | CD | |
| Lost Highway Soundtrack | CD | |
| Escape From LA Soundtrack | CD | |
| Ransom | CD | |
| Spawn Soundtrack | CD | |
| Paradigm Shift | CD | |
| J | CD | |
| Regular Set-Up Files | CD | |
| Skinny Puppy Related Side Projects And Rarities | CD | |
| Foxtrot | CD | |
| Songs Of The Witchblade | CD | |
| Transistorized Spectra Sonic Sound | CS | |
| Hyms Of The Warlock : A Tribute To Skinny Puppy | CD | |
| Nothing Changes | CD | |
| Skinny Puppy Related Rarities And Side Projects Vol. 3 | CD | |
| Videos1 | CD | |
| Music Set Up Files | CD | |
| Cd Covers | CD | |
| Skinny Puppy Related Side Projects And Rarities Vol. 2 | CD | |
| The Souls That Create | CD | |
| Stigmata | CD | |
| Music I'm Embarrassed To Listen To Vol 1 | CD | |
| Voivoid | The Lost Machine/Jack Luminous | CD |
| Westwood Studios | Command & Conquer | CD |
| White Zombie | Astro-Creep : 2000 | CS |
| Supersexy Swingin Sounds | CD | |
| Supersexy Swinging Sounds | CS | |
| William S. Burroughs/Kurt Cobain | The 'Priest' They Called Him | CD |
| Wiseblood | PTTM | CD |
Automatically generated by MusicCat
Last updated on 9/27/99
by inri
23:33
music cat was a cataloguing program written by bill van rooy, later briefly of download.
23:35
i'm starting in 1989, though.
what of that was relevant to me?
not much. some rem. some u2. that gowan record. tears for fears. actually, i loved that klf record...
beatles, yes; genesis, floyd, crimson...not yet.
that also seems to be a somewhat sanitized version of the list. the next oldest version i have is from 2001, and it has a lot more stuff that i didn't include....things like bryan adams cassettes.
we'll do this next week.
this week is just going to be an introduction.
23:52